Written by Jason Tockman Friday, 24 July 2009
Source: NACLA
For the first time since Chile’s return to democracy, the country’s ruling political coalition may lose the presidency. The centrist “Concertación” coalition is being challenged from both the left and the right, facing perhaps its toughest electoral battle yet. Previous elections have been mostly battled out between a consensus Concertación candidate and a right-wing opponent. But this year a relative newcomer to Chile’s political scene has shaken things up, gaining momentum in the race for the presidency. The political ascendance of 36-year-old Congressman Marco Enríquez-Ominami sets up a competitive three-way contest in the December 2009 election.
Candidates of the Concertación – formally known as the Agreement of Parties for Democracy – have won every presidential election since 1989. Among them is former President Eduardo Frei (1994-2000), a Christian Democrat, who is seeking a second term as the Concertación’s chosen candidate. Sitting President Michelle Bachelet, of the Concertación-affiliated Socialist Party, has won record high approval ratings (74 percent) for her handling of Chile’s economic crisis. However, this has not dented deep public disillusionment with the Concertación, which has become increasingly disconnected from any popular base, stagnating into an ossified political institution incapable of responding to social forces.
“Not only is the system detached from civil society, but it possesses little capacity for renovation and high degrees of endogamy,” explain scholars David Altman and Juan Pablo Luna in a recent report on Chilean politics. “One observes a political system co-opted by the elites and with low levels of citizen participation and activation.”
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