Sebastián Piñera won his second Presidency by installing the idea of the “better times”. Before the end of 2018, the strategic communication of the ruling Committee created a new slogan to replace the delayed parousia of the “better times”.
“Chile in March” would be the new communicational formula that the Government would adopt to face the deflate expectations experienced by the segment of voters who leaned by Pinera, which still expect a significant improvement in employment, Security and growth, minimum and mandatory varas which is measured at the current Government Administration.
At the end of 2018, the repercussions of the murder of Camilo Catrillanca did not give any space so Sebastián Piñera and the hosts Chile we could embody the ‘new story’ on the right. “Chile in March” was a totally inappropriate concept to deal with a scenario that received pressure from the historic rift between the Chilean State and the mapuche people. If this is combined with the full develamiento of the moral degradation that’s shaking the Catholic Church and to the interior of police corruption, the characterization of the moment more resembled the definition of a “Chile in decomposition” to a “Chile in March”.
During the summer period of 2019 – and with sectors of the opposition almost in anonymity – the Government was able to regain control of the agenda, which effectively imported the Venezuelan conflict, resource that had already given Piñera succulent revenues in its last electoral performance.
They say that every good idea has its time.
Ad portas of the celebration of the first year of the second term of Sebastián Piñera, Government evaluation considered the terrain of the political dispute much more clear that the pro-Government hosts resume the ‘new story’ of the “Chile in March”. On the initiative of the President himself, La Moneda planned for March 9 a ruling Convention in which participate Main management pictures of Chile are going, including who would be the keynote speaker for the event, Piñera, in addition to authorities from Government and party leaders.
Surely, the creators of the slogan “Chile in March” never imagined that the visionary concept would reach its fullest historical realisation one day before the Convention: March 8 the feminist General strike gave a postcard that is rarely seen in the Chile of the post-dictatorship.
This time, the call for the 8M already not could tilt as a “spontaneous” event. Networks of activists who had participated in the feminist wave in may 2018 had set up the coordination and organization of a feminist General strike well in advance to the historic 8 M. In the mid-2018, solidarity with the “revolution of the Green scarf” that emerged in Argentina, to subsequently support the “Iris” (El No) movement in the context of the last Brazilian presidential election race, where feminism was opposed to the the representative of the extreme right, Jair Bolsonaro candidacy. The electoral outcome of this episode is by all and all known, so much so that Bolsonaro will land in Santiago on March 23 to meet with Piñera in what appears to be a “failed project” new Chilean President in international matters (Prosur).
Regardless of the route that follows the feminist movement within the various national spaces, is a fact that the feminist tide to Latin America and world experiences a moment of art, growth and deployment.
Aware of this situation, the feminist activists rooted in the Coordinator convened 8M at the end of December last year the “meeting plurinational of women who fight”, with the purpose of forming the basis of the program that would articulate the strike feminist. These meetings were intensified during the summer, serving as a germinal platform of one of the most extraordinary calls that the country has known in recent decades.
Restorative drift which has taken the second Government of Sebastian Pinera is at continued risk of collision with the articulation process – not free of contradictions-experienced by the feminist movements and sexual diversity. To this day, “Agenda of equity of gender”, that Minister Isabel Plá reacted effectively to the outbreak of the feminist wave in may 2018, is completely insufficient to contain diversification and deepening of the raised demands for a movement that attempts to subvert the patriarchal structures scattered in the broader areas of public and private life.
So far, the paradigmatic movement of the tandem Bachelet-Piñera-Bachelet has recorded during the “second years” a growing escalation of the conflict. “First time” of the first Government of Michelle Bachelet, dealt not only with the surprising ‘Penguin movement’ (2006), but also faced protests against implementation of Transantiago and mobilization of contract workers of the copper and forestry a year later (2007). The first Government of Sebastian Pinera, after a placid first half topped with rescue the 33 miners (2010), succumbed to the second year before the emergence of social movements, especially the student, articulated behind the iconic slogan “No to the” non-profit”(2011). In his second term, Bachelet evaporated its impressive records of approval after the Caval episode, while the same year the project of the new majority capitulated with the return of “the old guard concertation” (2015).
The timing of the Caburgua ‘age’ is – term science – paradigmatic. The intensity that expresses the movement of “tectonic layers” in the current Chile – where the feminist movement is one of its main expressions – is an undeniable fact.
This is the physiognomy of the political scene in the beginning of this second year of the Government of Sebastian Pinera.
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