You’re ad portas of being a failed promise. All the calculations and bets of the factual powers of piñerism were in him: former Minister and former President of Banco Estado, Sebastián Sichel. But four months after being in the race, the idea of the fatigue of his campaign is already being installed, that both his change of political domicile and the excessive use of the resource of meritocracy, appealing to aspects of his biography, have not only erected barriers and mistrusts in Chile We are going towards his person, but have also prevented him from penetrating the structure of some of the parties of the official coalition , to settle as the standard-bearer of any of them and thus have a platform that sustains their presidential aspiration.
Regardless of the failed fate of President Piñera’s move and his own third retirement project, perhaps the most accurate evidence of the lack of influence in the Sichel sector – the primary factor for a presidential candidate, several pointed out on the right – was that, unlike his competitors, Joaquín Lavín (UDI), Mario Desbordes (RN) and Evelyn Matthei (UDI) , he was not summoned by La Moneda for coordination and negotiation prior to Sunday night’s announcement, but only for staging.
“Indeed concerned at the beginning,” they sincere both from the Commandos of Desbordes and Lavín when it came to talking about the break-in that he had on the stage of Chile Vamos the former puppeteer of the Social Development portfolio, because behind him have always been powerful personeros of the sector, such as Chancellor Andrés Allamand and former minister Andrés Chadwick – part of the factuals of chiñerism– , who have operated behind the scenes on their behalf permanently to enhance their presidential candidacy.
That was in January, even in February and part of March, with the media deployment it had and the rapid rise in different surveys. But today, as far as the end of April, both commandos agreed that their speech lacking strong proposals and the failed victimization strategy has caused them to overlook the issue, stop worrying, say that they “turned the page” and that they are no longer aware of what Sichel does or not do.
There are few on the right who make the simile of Sichel’s candidacy with the failed experiment that was, in 2013, the then UDI presidential, Laurence Golborne, who appealed to a similar speech: non-parties, son of a maipu-born hardware man, to try to account for a story of effort and personal achievement. It is not that the former president of Banco Estado will have a “Lorenzo” operation, they said in Chile Vamos, in relation to taking out “the dirty rags” to drop his candidacy, but it is a sign that in the coalition they will delay until the hartazgo the invitation through a formal letter to participate in the primaries of officialism in July. “Something tells you, ” they pointed out.
One thing that clashes and annoys quite a bit on the right is what they call Sichel’s “exaggerated” victimization, always trying to put on the table of public debate the disadvantage that would affect him by being an outsider of the sector, not having studied in the same elite schools from which comes the bulk of officialism and not having the backing of a party , a key factor, because that implies militancy and political networks for better territorial deployment at the national level of any presidential campaign. In Chile Vamos several sincere that, in the end, they chose to invite him to join the primaries, precisely, to cut off that oxygen tank, that speech that kept him afloat in the traditional media.
Maybe Sichel still resorts to pressing the victimization key. In an interview with La Tercera this week, he said that “it is unfair that an independent who wants to be part of a coalition cannot define participating by gathering signatures, gathering supports without permission. It’s very absurd. The other thing is that there is no funding for the primaries, while the parties have very large additional funding. And the third thing, perhaps the hardest part of all this, is that it actually often in political gestures makes you feel un parted.”
In Chile Vamos stated that this strategy lost brightness, that it no longer achieved the positioning that Sichel desired, considering that it has not achieved great acceptance in the electorate of the sector.
In the April Data Influence survey, published yesterday, the formerSocial Development (4.0%) sixth in presidential preferences, behind José Antonio Kast (4.5%), Matthei (4.8%), Lavín (9.8%), Pamela Jiles (15.5%) and Daniel Jadue (16.8%). In the case of Criteria in March, Sichel ranked sixth in chile’s presidential standard-bearers Vamos with 6% and in the Cadem poll in the second week of April, it dropped from four to fifth place, also being six points.
Close to Sichel they attributed the lean numbers in the polls to different factors. One, who did not want to enter into the political fray with Evelyn Matthei or Mario Desbordes, as it would defilate him from the apolitical discourse he tries to sustain. Two, who to date the numbers of the surveys would be inflated or still motivated by the 10% withdrawal, for which Sichel stood on the front door.
But the truth is that the candidacy of the former minister of Piñera shows several problems in these months. On the right they suggested that while their strongness would be in the independent world – or at least that’s where he points – there are notorious ambiguities between his liberal and ultra-model discourse, given the factual powers of the sector behind his campaign, which are precisely the most conservative sectors.
In addition, since National Renewal they added to the list the failed to achieve one of their main political objectives: to try to “put the wedge” into the party to divide presidential preferences internally between him and Mario Desbordes, the officially proclaimed standard-bearer. In fact, they say that the fear that existed at some point, that those who felt “past to take” by Desbordes would be switched sides, would not have realized in the feared magnitude and that it would have been just a “scare.”
From Lavín’s command they noted that in none of the meetings with militants of gremialism has his name appeared. The space of the mayor of Las Condes is precisely that of the independents, the same one that has gone out to seek the former president of Banco Estado, but that until now in his polls would not be able to “bite” enough.
The bet to resurrect
Inside Sichel’s command they have a different and more optimistic look. They said the campaign is not fatigued, but the flag bearer has dedicated himself to participating in many interviews with regional media in order to increase his level of knowledge.
They said they have private surveys that install him in a situation of greater competitiveness than the various public polls demonstrate and that in those, he is following Matthei’s footsteps closely. As they bet that the mayor will come down from the race to La Moneda before the primary, that would attract those votes to the former minister’s mill.
In addition, part of the bet is to wait for the debate time to come, where sichel’s command considers it to be the space where Lavín “always deflates”, due to the lack of clear guidelines required by the right-wing electorate.
But the “ace up your sleeve,” they said in command, would be the book the candidate recently took out, an autobiography called, “No Privileges,” from El Mercurio’s publisher, which will be the perfect excuse to tour Chile and get more media spaces, telling its story, which they insisted, “remains their forte.”
On Saturday, April 24, an excerpt was published in El Mercurio’s Saturday magazine. The story captures Sichel’s different vision with the rest of the Government of Piñera at the time of the social outburst, who did not delay in classifying what was going on as acts of extreme crime or terrorism and recalled when he was sent to the “freezer” after stating in those days that “you have to put the wagon in front of the oxen” , pointing to the conflict encompassing profound problems, which, he stressed, would have cost him a rebuke from the Representative himself.
