The more traditional right has given a thousand explanations of why Joaquín Lavín Infante has again been anointed as a presidential letter. While the last few weeks of political contingency have added theories and chapters to a new playbook, my appreciation of the reason that leads the mayor of Las Condes to the race for O’Higgins’ piocha is much simpler: that’s all there is.
Described in his sector as the letter that “best interprets the needs and longings of Chileans”, Lavín Infante will compete in the primaries of his sector for the presidency after being unanimously proclaimed by the general council of the party and leave On the way evelyn Matthei. The economist’s third attempt in 22 years: but his first primary in territory unknown to all analysts after the parties break up in the face of the emergency of the independents in the May election.
With three contenders in the primary (some more unknown than others) and the shadow of José Antonio Kast atomizing the vows of the first round, the adventure of Lavín Infante is seen as a ticket to board the Titanic. The icebergs that float on this sea route are the mayoralties lost on the right in Santiago, Maipú, Central Station, Auñoa and other emblematic communes for gremialism. Continuing with the pop metaphor, we can project that Lavín Infante wants us to believe that watching the same film for the third time, will allow us to attend a different ending.
In my opinion, Lavín Infante continues to surround himself with that entourage of advisers disconnected from the social reality that interprets in his ear “the needs and longings of Chileans” and that uses his charisma and influence to install a narrative that sounds like the song of summer: repeated ad infinitum without any disgust or expression of shame behind the smiling mask. On newspaper covers, newscasts, service programs, modulated frequency, live dispatches, Sunday morning political talk show, Sunday night and – early as the good religious – in the morning the following Monday. That commendable will is his greatest merit, probably believe his close ones.
These close friends introduced me to me and once recognized me that “very few people have been able to snatch an hour and a half of agenda from the eternal candidate.” In my case, I have told it before, community life installed me as improvised collector of the necessary silvers to shield his wife’s campaign as councillor of the Municipality of Santiago in 2004, which he obtained as the first national majority. A little earlier, the influential Patricio Cordero (QEPD), lavín Infante’s right-hand man, made the appointment where Lavín Infante, a dozen Taiwanese and I gathered at the restaurant “The Blue Danube”, in the El Golf neighborhood, to give him the necessary resources for his wife’s discreet political adventure. In the words of Lamb himself, the mayor “was short of money” and, in the lack of political experience of the improvised candidate, had prevented the party from funding this campaign.
While I do not consider myself a person who stumbles twice with the same stone, I am not spiteful, even though in this same period, the mayor asked me to lower my candidacy for councillor for Santiago to favor that of his wife. Beaten and razed, I was made available to the triumph of those who took away a genuine political and community project. My years-long business contact with the Chinese and Taiwanese community allowed me to raise the respectable $50,000 sum among a dozen entrepreneurs, whose only condition for this loan, was to meet the mayor in person and present him with his concerns as citizens of a country that sheltered them 20,000 miles from their history.
Back at “The Blue Danube,” on the day of the crucial event, I explained to Lavín Infante how this commitment of the Taiwanese community was based on the admiration, trust and community philosophy of this culture. For their part, the financiers raised their good faith that the mayor valued “this affectionate and high-esteem contribution”. After dinner, I accompanied Joaquin Lavín to his car. Going out through his bodyguards (Ricardo and “The Chicken”), the caress took me by the arm and, from the heart of his political field, he said, “Carlos, you passed me one.!! Thank you very much.”
If this had been Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather,” this favor, probably this debt of honor, would have been translated (minimum) into a coffee back, but the only way to get the attention of the mayor, senator and presidential candidate since then, it has been anticipating the purchase of its internet domains: LavinPresidente.cl or Lavin2022m among others.
I wonder thereafter, how much should a erdist’s loyalty, word or honor be worth? More than his state, probably, as Vito Corleone would say, to close this figure. Not long after this appointment with Taiwanese financiers, I could hear Lavín Infante himself relativize the economy and contribution of this community in Chile: “We must set aside the Chinese,” he said as a revitalizing patch of the Chilean industry. I felt disappointed as a person and also as a rudimentary political operator and representative of these
Defrauded as a person, but also as a representative of these financiers
Who could doubt the talents of an eternal candidate who says yes by smiling at everything, of a devout numeral Opus Dei faithful to those convictions, but also to dark patrons like the Choclo Délano? When I was taken off the edilicio board of Santiago, my position was won by a promising Felipe Alessandri who was given his chance in time, but also gave him his fair payment recently. This is what happens when decisions are made by a group of people away from the real pulse and citizen: you leave 50 people happy, but 500 thousand bewildered.
Perhaps we will once again conquer the top of the old saying: societies have the authorities they deserve. For some reason we have come out of a second legitimate and democratic mandate of the worst president that memory remembers. Having Lavín Infante in La Moneda can be the icing on the cake for a season worthy of oblivion: local social outburst, global pandemic and the return of fundamentalisms such as in Brazil and Bolsonaro, as happens when organisms have their defenses down and are left to bend by a virus disguised as protein, such as the Covid-19.
Currently, the map of confirmed and possible applications for this 2021 is uneven ground for Lavín Infante. Much “friendly fire” represented by the incipient names of Ignacio Briones, Mario Desbordes, Sebastián Sichel and above all the dissenting effect of José Antonio Kast. On the other hand, the “crossfire” ranges from the shrapnel that Yasna Provoste and Paula Narváez mean to the heavy artillery of Gabriel Boric and Daniel Jadue. Carlos Maldonado?… they say he smokes.
If Lavín Infante doesn’t win the election, he can keep trying. He has the youth on his part, the stubbornness of those who like to deceive themselves. Too bad, Joe Biden made it at 80. Perhaps if you put the smile aside, we can finally see a real political and social project. Every time I hear Joaquin Lavín Infante rising for a new presidential campaign, I applaud his perseverance, but common sense shakes his head. There’s no way Lavín Infante is president of Chile. “First the communists come to power, ” someone would have jokingly said before he turned pale.
The content poured into this opinion column is the sole responsibility of its author, and does not necessarily reflect The editorial line or position of El Mostrador.
