A new chapter in Chile’s political crisis

Chile: mass demonstrations

A new chapter in Chile’s political crisis

Patricio Guzman, Socialismo Revolucionario (CWI Chile)

Hundreds of thousands took to the streets of major Chilean cities this month. Demonstrators – mostly youth, but also workers and older people – insisted the government meet students’ demands for free education. Protesters also expressed accumulated popular anger at low wages, poor working conditions and corrupt politicians and business leaders.

This explosion from below shows Chile has entered a new period. The government’s general crisis of legitimacy is now at its highest point.

College teachers joined the action, demanding decent working conditions and defence of public education. They called for an end to privatisation, which has led to huge education disparity between different areas.

Sadly, events were marred by the unjustifiable killing of two young people during a demonstration in Valparaiso. This was followed by further protests in many cities.

Broken promises

The current government’s promises of free education and an end to private profit in the sector have not been met. President Michelle Bachelet even appointed the notorious Marcos Barraza as a minister in her new cabinet. Barraza is involved in profiteering at Arcis University – which was on the verge of bankruptcy.

The new finance minister, Rodrigo Valdés Pulido, is a veteran of the International Monetary Fund and large US banks.

This cabinet was born in the midst of great distrust. The government’s approval ratings are in free fall. May’s giant marches are the first response to its brazen pro-big business, anti-working class agenda.

Bachelet has lost what backing – or benefit of the doubt – she had for partial reforms. Eight months’ permanent trickle of corruption scandals, at least one involving the president herself, has demolished her support.

For a long period, student leaders were paralysed by attempts to co-opt them into government. They wasted time participating in inconclusive talks. But now students have showed their strength on the streets, defying the government and its desperate attempts to avoid corruption investigations.

Earlier this month, over 1,000 striking workers from private security firms Brinks and Prosegur marched through the streets of Santiago, fighting for better wages and working conditions. This was a foretaste of what has now come, massive marches called by students.

The marches were a magnificent show of force. But it is no longer enough just to demonstrate.

Unify struggles

The Confederation of Chilean Students (Confech) and the student movement have won popular legitimacy. It can use this to help unify social struggles throughout the country. Isolated we cannot win; together our force can be unbeatable.

Confech, together with trade unions and social campaigns, should call a national assembly of students and workers. This should take as its reference point the demands made by wide sections of the population for improved pay, working conditions and social rights; free education; and against political corruption. The next step in achieving this must be a national protest and 24-hour general strike.

Such a movement would have the potential to put an end to the corrupt political institutions inherited from the dictatorship and consolidated by successive governments.

The ordinary people of Chile have burst into the public arena, and this has opened a new chapter in the country’s political and moral crisis. It is our responsibility to open the road to a positive outcome: convening a constituent assembly to end the legacy of the dictatorship and rapacious civilian pro-big business governments.

Chile: the background

Following the 1973 military coup led by General Augusto Pinochet, Chile became the world’s laboratory for neoliberal policies: aggressive privatisation and deregulation. Pinochet’s crushing of the workers’ movement and left opened the door to a series of brutal attacks. As part of this, education was privatised and deregulated, exacerbating inequality.

The struggle against dictatorship was tightly bound up with the struggle of the working class for rights and decent conditions, and therefore against Chilean capitalism.

The massive demonstrations and strike waves which marked the last years of the dictatorship were seen by many workers as a way to take up anew the struggle begun in the 1970s for a socialist society. However, this process was tragically nipped in the bud, as the leaders of the workers’ and main left organisations succeeded in channelling these struggles along the path of “peaceful negotiations”.

This established capitalist ‘democracy’ without doing away with the dictatorship of the big bosses and imperialism. Workers and the poor were told this transition would allow the election of left governments which could dramatically change the situation.

President Michelle Bachelet was elected to a second stint in office for the New Majority (formerly Concertacion) ‘centre left’ coalition in 2013. Since the end of the dictatorship in 1989, there have been 22 years of Concertacion/New Majority government. These have been years of betrayal, during which the neoliberalism of the Pinochet era was not only maintained, but deepened.