“I’ll get there or I can get there. That will depend a lot on what people want and that the conditions under which the definition of a presidential candidate is made this time are a little different from the previous ones, because they were not too good: there were no primaries, it was a disaster, and there was no socialist candidate.” The words correspond to Senator José Miguel Insulza, who last September, in “Zero Tolerance”, reaffirmed his intention to represent the party in the eventual primary of the sector. But beyond his new personal attempt, the words of the former interior minister reveal a deficit inside the collective, which again runs the risk of reaching the presidential race without a representative of his own ranks, and recall the lean results of having opted for the independent Alejandro Guillier, generating the consequent internal break for having set aside former manager Ricardo Lagos.
Today a new central committee of the Socialist Party will be held and, while no one expects great definitions, everyone is aware of how complex it can become, considering the political moment that is being lived and the increasingly erratic signs that are delivered from the opposition sector with a view to municipal, governor and presidential elections. The most recurrent comment is that the right “seems to have the road paved, despite this Government” and that Joaquín Lavín’s choice is one of the many alternatives, but the same is not true of the opposition. The PS, beyond the resquemores that exist from a sector regarding the complex management of the directive, remains the strongest community of the opposition, but has not achieved its main purpose since it had to sit on the opposition bench, as was generating unity from DC to PC.
In this context, one of the discussions that remain open – and which became a socialist disjunction, considering the electoral schedule – is whether the PS will bet on a candidate of its own or one on the outside, or whether, as a third alternative, it will pass on support to a neighbouring candidate. The last similar experience, which he considered an unpublished secret vote, was the election of the independent Alejandro Guillier as his presidential representative, leaving wounds so deep with the current directive that, as several say, “they will never heal”.
Today the scenario is not far from the last presidential election, considering that the Socialist Party does not have any person of its ranks to mark in the polls, but even more complex is that the only one that has shown absolute readiness today would generate more rejections than support in the internal, and that, they said, is one of the reasons for the delay in the definition for the election mechanism , because according to those who are well aware of the work of the directive, they would not know how to notify the former Minister of the Interior.
Insulza is constantly reminded, among the parting bases, of his phrase regarding those who evaded payment of the subway, as a prelude to what became the social outburst, which would mark the political destiny of the country. On that occasion, the “Panzer” noted that he was in favor of “repressing with energy the attempt to skip the tourniquets”. And at the same time they recall the inasistence to the Senate Chamber that helped the constitutional indictment against the metropolitan mayor, Felipe Guevara, who was accused of violating the right to assembly and freedom of expression in the so-called Plaza de la Dignidad.
Added to this was the definitive refusal to assume the post of Senator Carlos Montes, who in his minute attracted cross-cutting support in the party, and who also considered out-of-store props, mainly from the Broad Front. The senator “does not generate The Rejection of Insulza,” they argue on the PS, but despite all the attempts it was impossible to convince him. Then the names of Deputy Maya Fernández, who also declined, in addition to deputy Manuel Monsalve, kept smiling.
But before having to come up with the last alternative, that of eventual support for the candidate of another party in the sector, he besa broke to two names that generated different reactions in the socialist intern, but which were indeed on the table. It is, first of all, the former PS, now founder of the PRO, Marco Enríquez-Ominami, but his judicial situation, which makes him unable to pay according to the Servel, would have put the tombstone at his option.
The other name that was sounded on the PS, but that he myhe would have already ruled out, it was that of the current rector of the University of Chile, Ennio Vivaldi, who was a member of the party until the military coup, when he would have decided to put aside his political career.
In this way, in the Socialist Party they find themselves again in a disjunction of a presidential nature, and again under the same administration of Senator Alvaro Elizalde, to which not a few point out for the absence of the collective in the debate of the issues of greatest national impact. To this they added their lack of incidence and driving as one of the factors that led to the resignation of historical members of the PS during their management, among them the former minister of the Interior, Germán Correa, and bachelet’s former spokesman, Marcelo Díaz.
But there is more: without wanting to say it in public, there is a widespread annoyance about how the store remains tainted by the public and constant accusations that are made of the work of the ex-PS and current mayor of San Ramón, Miguel Angel Aguilera, who, despite all the upheaval that has meant its municipal management for the store, finally chose not to put competition in future municipalities. “That’s where you’re playing with the historical PS brand,” they point out from the collective.
The dean of the Faculty of Political Science and Public Administration of the Central University, Marco Moreno, believes that “what we are seeing is that the PS fails to influence the agenda, is always reacting to what other sectors do or do not do, and that is then very complex. In politics, at the end of the day what you say, your reaction, proposals, may be more or less attendable, but you can’t be left alone in the reaction to initiative, and that’s what happens.”
He added that “the PS is not being seen as an alternative, it does not mark and influences the agenda, so that is an aspect that greatly completes a current positioning or leadership.”
There are already some who have opened the discussion about what to do waiting for a mechanism to decide who and how it will represent them. In this way, there are those who point out that it would be best to support a candidate from within Constituent Unity, and the one who would bear the advantage is the former chancellor Heraldo Muñoz, always awaiting the internal definition, where former government speaker Francisco Vidal competes. But, in that case, it was noted that there could be a decoupling with the socialist bases, that they have constantly questioned the party’s indefinition and lack of stance, and that, in this case, “concerting” would speak only of “letting itself be”.
On the other hand, there are those who suggested that, with “the feet on the ground”, the PC candidate, Daniel Jadue, is always an option, considering its positioning, although its name generates a lot of internal noise. In this sense, and taking the profile of candidate that he adopted from a tempo to date, that of differentiation with the former Concertación, they pointed out that the affection for his candidacy would have dropped some degrees to date.
While the proposal is not yet materialized, under rope, from time to time, PS people are talking about “democratic socialism”, an idea of a federative nature that seeks to build a greater back in the sector, a “greater perspective of identity”. What is not considered in this proposal is the merger of some party, and the general idea of not losing the identity of the store is reinforced. The arc would cover sectors of RD, PL, PRO, PPD, PR and PS, not contemplating Christian Democracy in this case.
