By María M. Mur |
Santiago de Chile (EFE) the honeymoon did not last long.
A year later, the 37-year-old former student leader enjoys little approval in Chile, has still not been able to carry out any of his emblematic reforms and is repeatedly forced to face some controversy or conflict, either due to mistakes by his own team. or by an opposition that does not give truce.
“It was not a good year. In the polls he has been in free fall. It has spent most of the year under 30% approval,” Kenneth Bunker, Politico Tech Global analyst and director of the Tresquintos pollster, told EFE.
“They don’t want changes”
The last blow was received this Wednesday, just when it seemed that it was beginning to pick up after a successful management of the deadly fires that hit the south in February.
By a narrow margin, the Chamber of Deputies rejected his tax reform, tarnishing the commemoration of Women’s Day, in which the Government intended to gain muscle from its feminist vocation.
“This is good news for those who evade taxes with impunity and shame,” said Boric, while lamenting that “there is a sector that tries to make things not change.”
The reform, with which it sought to collect 3.6% of GDP in four years and which had the backing of the OECD, is essential to finance the government’s social program and its rejection especially shakes Boric’s key man: the minister of the Treasury, Mario Marcel.
“Things are going to get even more difficult if the opposition and other opportunistic parties continue with the short-sightedness that we have seen in the vote on the tax reform,” Julieta Suárez Cao, from the Catholic University of Chile, told EFE.
For the expert, the “siege” of the opposition increased after the September plebiscite, when he lost Boric’s option and 62% of Chileans rejected the proposal for a new Constitution: “The referendum left him with much less symbolic power. Afterwards, it became more difficult to resume the agenda.”
“The biggest mistake of the year is having linked the government so directly with the “I approve” option in the plebiscite,” stressed Mireya Dávila, from the University of Chile.
Rodrigo Pérez de Arce, from the Instituto de Estudios de la Sociedad (IES), is more critical and considers that the tax reform vote “is not a triumph of the right, which did not have a sufficient majority, but a self-inflicted defeat.” .
“The Government has had to row above all against its own mistakes. Let’s remember that shortly after coming to power, the former Minister of the Interior Izkia Siches visited the Mapuche community of Temucuicui and was repelled by bullets,” Pérez de Arce pointed out about a criticized episode that was linked to the inexperience of the government.
more approval out
The parliamentary defeat further fuels the rumors of a ministerial change to seek a new balance between the two ruling coalitions: I Approve Dignity (left) and Socialismo Democrático (center-left).
Some experts point to the coexistence between these two blocks, which represent very different styles and trajectories, as one of Boric’s big problems.
“Having to step on eggs so as not to anger anyone is a problem. Perhaps there is no solution and simply the coalitions where there are extremes are not functional, ”said Bunker, who recalled that Boric’s worst moment was last January, when he pardoned prisoners detained for crimes committed in the 2019 protests.
“People have left behind the social outbreak and are much more concerned at this time about the economy, migration or the security crisis,” Bunker added.
Despite the complicated internal scenario, Boric continues to hoard political capital abroad, thanks above all to his defense of human rights in multilateral forums and his forceful condemnation of Venezuela or Nicaragua, a position that has distanced him from other progressive regional leaders.
“There have been milestones that break with a few years in which Chile had moved away from the multilateral path that had characterized it,” Shirley Götz, from the Alberto Hurtado University, tells EFE, who highlights in this sense the signing of the Escazú Agreement, the first environmental pact in Latin America.
For Bunker, all is not lost: “Boric has a lot going for him, he has only wasted time, but the opportunity to do things well will not depend on how much he has learned from his mistakes and his ability to correct them.”
