The Chile Economy, Social Crisis and Virus Impact

[mem]

I still like Beatriz Sanchez: she seems like a smart, good person and her policies are good and suit the direction the protestors, and the majority behind them, want Chile to go in.

She's polling very low (but so is everyone except Lavin) and is not in the news much. It's unclear whether she can win populist appeal amongst the working classes.

According to https://www.latercera.com/la-tercera-pm ... 6YIVAKHSE/
"Cercanos a Sánchez señalan que hoy, la periodista está cada vez más lejos de competir nuevamente en una presidencial". If I understand that right, sources close to her are saying that her thought processes are increasingly moving in the direction of not running? Then again, her twitter says "Beatriz Presidenta".

Can anyone find much fault with her, or her policies?

One argument is she's not exactly had a lot of political experience.

Reminder of 2017 first round election result: Pinera 36.6% Guiller 22.7% Sanchez 20.3%.

Given how bad Chilean politicians are, I would say that not having political experience would be a very good thing.

Certainly good in principle. My only concern is they would likely be eaten alive by all the "experienced" politicians surrounding them...using leverage, making "moves", etc. Seen that movie too many times where a fresh idealistic person gets elected to office with a desire to act with integrity, but then they get the wrath of the others when they realise the newcomer wont "play ball", and then it becomes hardball, deep fakes, and every other "move" that can be made to neuter them one way or the other even from the same party

[RuneTheChookcha]

https://www.biobiochile.cl/noticias/nac ... enta.shtml

The new legislative initiative, a.k.a. "Ruptura de paz social", aims to sanction those who participate in any "violent agglomeration", despite not being caught directly committing crimes such as "robbery in an uninhabited place, arson, destruction of property, assault on police, among others."

[fraggle092]

https://www.biobiochile.cl/noticias/nac ... enta.shtml

The new legislative initiative, a.k.a. "Ruptura de paz social", aims to sanction those who participate in any "violent agglomeration", despite not being caught directly committing crimes such as "robbery in an uninhabited place, arson, destruction of property, assault on police, among others."

Its strange that despite having 20-odd thousand laws on the books, every situation that arises seems to need a new one.
You can bet that the same people will vote against it as voted against the Ley Sticker, which seeks to sanction destruction of public transport. Just another sign that the Opposition doesn't care at all about the state of the country.
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[Britkid]

Presumably most or all of those that voted against that law were not saying that you can burn a bus and go free but rather that there shouldn't be such harsh punishment for people using graffiti as a form of political protest, or in agreement with protecting public transport but not with the specifics, or thought the punishments were too harsh to sign off on it.

It must already be a crime to destroy metro stations, and the question here was whether to make bigger punishments, make graffiti a serious crime, expand the powers of the police just at a time when the police and military have been caught doing bad stuff.

I'm not giving any opinion here about the law, I just thought you may have misrepresented some of the people that voted against it.

[fraggle092]

Presumably most or all of those that voted against that law were not saying that you can burn a bus and go free but rather that there shouldn't be such harsh punishment for people using graffiti as a form of political protest, or in agreement with protecting public transport but not with the specifics, or thought the punishments were too harsh to sign off on it.

It must already be a crime to destroy metro stations, and the question here was whether to make bigger punishments, make graffiti a serious crime, expand the powers of the police just at a time when the police and military have been caught doing bad stuff.

I'm not giving any opinion here about the law, I just thought you may have misrepresented some of the people that voted against it.

Uff...bienvenido al mundo Bilz y Pap.

Here's a CADEM sample from last month showing institutional approval. Chileans aren't as prepared as you are to give those pols the benefit of the doubt. The police still enjoy highish ratings while Congress, and especially the Opposition, definitely does not.

What "Bad Stuff" are you on about? I take it you are referring to Human Rights violations, and not their massive financial scandals. Examples of institutional misconduct now, not the misbehaviour of (a very few) bad apples.
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[Britkid]

For the bad stuff, yeah I was talking about human rights violations, women accusing of sexual abuse in captivity, people getting shot in the eye, people being roughed up while lying on the ground not resisting arrest, all that sort of thing, mostly going back to the second half of October and maybe early November. I'd argue that the very high number of such cases (at that time) and the limited condemnation from the top probably was reflective of an institutional issue, rather than a few bad apples. When the military were beating someone up that was already lying on the floor subdued, and there were often other military standing around (and no other protestors or criminals nearby), very rarely did those other military people intervene to stop it. That to me was indicative of an institutional issue. However this is subjective so if you think it was more of a few bad apples, then fair enough.

Very interesting survey. I do like the CADEM surveys. Thank you for posting it. I am pleased to see the police and even military seeing a rise in their ratings. Not because they deserve it, but because I don't want to see society fall apart if and when we come to wave 2 of the protests and violence.

How the ratings have changed over time, is also of interest.

[Britkid]

I also find it interesting how very low the Frente Amplio is in this poll. 14% approval!! That's worse than Sebastian Pinera!

Not only that, but they have crashed down from 28%-29% in September/October before the protests.

My argument has been that Chile became a slightly more left wing country in October/November, with people waking up to issues surrounding pensions, inequality, health care and education.

But if this argument is true, why is the Frente Amplio going lower than ever in the ratings? They are the ones whose policies would probably best address the concerns of protestors (there is a very close match in my view) and arguably the concerns of the majority of working class people in the country.

Can anyone point to scandals, dumb things the Frente Amplio have done? Especially from October (when they had 28% approval) to December (15% approval). It could be that some parties left the coalition in November - but I thought they were minor ones? Maybe that impact was bigger than I thought?

One possible explanation is that many of its former supporters, including the types of people that protested in October/November, or at least supported the protests, have simply reached the point where they no longer trust any mainstream political parties. These include the types of people who are left wing, sometimes very left wing, but say (falsely in my view) that they are neither left nor right, but are those from down below (abajo) fighting those from above (arriba). They define themselves more from their opposition to the political establishment than anything else. Maybe some of them have, not for any logical reason, but just from emotions and frustration, just decided enough is enough after 30 years and have abandoned all political parties.

That could explain why the Frente Amplio has been going so low in the polls. It could mean the Frente Amplio as a coalition is done for. It may make more sense to create a new left wing coalition without that name, that includes some but not all of those parties. A combination of changing the personnel with a bit of rebranding.

Another possible partial explanation is that there are people who should be supporting the Frente Amplio according to their beliefs, but are not knowledgeable of their policies. Then there may be a chunk of people who will just vote for someone with a nice hair cut and slogan, without looking too closely at the policies. (To be fair, the Frente Amplio could do a better job of getting its beliefs and leading figures more widely known.)

The question is who do all these people vote for in the next major elections? Do some of those who, in the polls, voted to disaprove every coalition going, go for Frente Amplio (or successor coalition) as the least bad choice (from their perspective)? Does the left split itself so much that the right wins again, and Chile has more years of neoliberal capitalism excess with protests and violence likely to rear up again at any point? Does some left wing populist with no political experience appear on the scene out of nowhere and catapult themselves to the Presidency? I honestly am not sure at this point.

[fraggle092]

To be honest, I did cherry pick with CADEM, as their results are often contradictory, even within the same survey. Rather than indicating manipulation, I believe that it tends to show the confused and wishful thinking of those being polled.

But the political approval ratings have steadily decreased over the past few years, and have now reached rock bottom. That result is as definite as it gets here.

A good many of the claimed police abuse cases have been discredited, but I won't go into details-unless asked to. All done with the same animus that condemns Piñera as an assassin. Ridiculous. PS I asked for evidence of institutional wrongdoing, not hearsay and doctored Twitter videos.
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[Britkid]

I like CADEM. In October and November, I spoke to a lot of family, neighbours, parents at my school about the political issues. For a while, I was even speaking to random people I met to get a handle on what was going on. And then I looked at social media and TV extensively as well and this forum.

And the combined results of that aligned well with what CADEM said.

[admin]

what did the FA do?

well, nothing. That is exactly why they are being rejected, by both left and right. They turned put to be exactly as useless and opportunistic bunch of boobs as their predecessors the communist (corruption) party.

where is the left in the middle of this pandemic crisis?

let's see, blocking a cut in congressional pay.

we got the girl from the medical association, that has nothing but shit to say. Granted she is cute, but that is the new marketing game of the left. worked for commie cami, etc, etc. I know everyone likes a pretty girl, but one with something constructive or original would be nice. They have not quite figured out the three Bs of capitalist marketing of communist (babes, bikinis, and beer). They seem to stop at the first B.

seriously though, the left screwed up. They had it. they won the battle. rather than consolidate their position, they pushed it until they lost the war.

however the election turns out, they will be blamed for it. forever.

[Britkid]

where is the left in the middle of this pandemic crisis?

let's see, blocking a cut in congressional pay.

I'm a bit skeptical that "the left" is responsible for blocking the cut, but happy take a look at the evidence if you can share a source showing the breakdown of votes. I saw a new story but I can't remember where to look up the breakdown of the votes.

[tiagoabner]

where is the left in the middle of this pandemic crisis?

let's see, blocking a cut in congressional pay.

I'm a bit skeptical that "the left" is responsible for blocking the cut, but happy take a look at the evidence if you can share a source showing the breakdown of votes. I saw a new story but I can't remember where to look up the breakdown of the votes.

This article has a good breakdown, including how each congressman voted:

https://www.eldinamo.com/nacional/2020/ ... mentarias/