translated from Spanish: Seminar of the University of Talca analyzed the progress of populism in Chile

The lack of legitimacy of the policy and an entity that monitor the regionalization process, may be factors that open the door to populism in Chile, estimated the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (Flacso researcher ), Carlos Portales, the seminar “populism or democratic consolidation: dilemmas for Latin America”.
Addressing the traits of this phenomenon present in our political debate, the analyst mentioned, for example, the lack of consensus on constitutional reform. “A process in the claim of a constituent Assembly which ended in an unknown project that lies buried in the Secretariat of the Congress ran out, but there was no serious effort in Chile to seek a possible reform,” he said during the organized activity by the program CIEPLAN-UTALCA.
He added that there is also a problem of legitimacy of the institutions that have the Mission of representing citizens. “The prestige of parties and politics, survey after survey, is very limited and that can be a problem that can be done to raise the possibilities of populism to medium-term,” he warned.
Portals also mentioned the role they are playing some suprapoliticas institutions. “I think that the issue of the Constitutional Court is becoming a problem by excessive, a broad interpretation of its powers”, said.
The analyst also pointed to conditions with that it will be launched the rules aimed at strengthening the regionalisation. “There is no doubt that a process of this type has at least 3 or 4 high risks, being, in my opinion the main corruption: If there is an institution Comptroller of the distribution of power in the regions are going to extend the corruption immediately” He noted.
In turn, the director of the Center for political analysis of the UTALCA, Mauricio Morales, acknowledged that the advance of populist leaders in the continent “gives space to discuss about the political, social and economic conditions that today it has day our country to facilitate or hinder the consolidation of this kind of leadership in the next presidential elections.”
The scholar pointed out, however, that by its constitutional setup, our country is more protected than others to the populist threat. “The control of election spending, the end of the binominal system and the role they continue to have traditional political parties despite their loss of support and legitimacy, are factors that benefit Chile and hurt a possible arrival of populism,” said.
Latin America during the seminar that served as backdrop for CIEPLAN and Universidad de Talca renew their Alliance for a new period, was also reviewed the current political scene shaking to Brazil, Peru and Argentina.
The Executive Superintendent of the Instituto Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, Sergio Fausto, focused much of his exhibition in the choice of Jair Bolsonaro, highlighting key aspects of his leadership style, as the militarization and the figuration of family .
“Bolsonaro Government is a non-traditional political support – in contrast to Trump that counts with the Republican party-, so it can generate shorts because it must be held in that unconventional style. The outsiders can reach easy power, but how difficult it is to keep them,”he said.
About Peru the academic of the University of Santiago, Lucía Dammert, explained that populist expressions in that country began several years ago. “Fujimori was ahead Bolsonaro in the sense that years ago it was who said that all that had been before it was wrong, pulverized to political parties and installed a mafia State”, he recalled.
For his part, former Ambassador of Chile in Argentina, José Antonio Viera-Gallo, reviewed the populist phenomenon already known in the Andean country: peronism.
“Now Cristina, the leading exponent of peronism, is trying to re-organize the movement. “In his recent speech anti G-20 called to form a new front, ‘ that is not neither right nor left’, where ‘fit all women, those of green scarf and blue scarf’, i.e., does not take any positions”, graphic.

Original source in Spanish