Piñera’s cabinet in the shadows

This Wednesday, August 17, at a press point, Carlos Siri, owner of the German Fountain, was heard saying that he did not want to know anything about Sebastián Piñera in the campaign in favor of the Rejection. The reason? The inability he showed to maintain public order during his government. The figure of the Rejection campaign – whose food placed in the vicinity of Plaza Italia was continuously vandalized in those demonstrations that became common on Friday afternoons – thus responded to the media that required his words to refer to that forced ostracism that the former President seems to suffer, who decided – like a significant part of the right – to take a back seat and “outsource” the Rejection campaign. That is, to cede much of the prominence of it to “independent citizens”, “converts” and “yellow” ex-concertactionists.
Indeed: the silence of the businessman and former President has been thunderous, only interrupted on June 20, when he sent a letter to the Constitutional Convention to excuse himself from attending the ceremony of delivery of the proposal for a new Magna Carta. “The vast majority of Chileans do not want to continue to divide and confront each other over the Constitution for the next 40 years. He wants unity and for the Constitution to be everyone’s house,” he wrote. Today, two weeks before the plebiscite, many are surprised at the internal strength he has shown to maintain silence, which definitely does not match his inveterate habit of being in all; others appreciate his silence, because it is the best thing that could happen to Rejection, while there are those who do not find a way to involve him in the contingency.
But is it true that Piñera does not speak? Is it possible that a man with the personality of Piñera, twice President of the Republic, would be content to look from the outside at this debate regarding one of the most important electoral events in the history of Chile? Apparently, the former Head of State is not silent, he speaks through his former ministers, who have had a media exposure equal to what they had when they were Government. In real terms Piñera does not speak, Piñerismo speaks.
Former President Piñera’s cabinet in the shadows
“When you listen to sebastián Piñera’s former ministers, and it is easily interpretable that he is the former president, who so far is the only one we have not heard, who is making known his position on the most diverse matters,” says Vlado Mirosevic, one of the political faces who leads the Apruebo campaign. “That is why we make an open and frontal call: it would be good for former President Piñera to pronounce himself once and for all, just as all former presidents have done in the face of one of the most important elections in the history of Chile,” he adds.
By the way, for some time now, observers such as the political analyst and psychologist Germán Silva warn that the pattern is more or less the same: when it comes to talking about the pension reform, for example, María José Zaldívar, his former Minister of Labor, appears; when the time comes to talk about the pandemic, the post is taken by the former head of Health, Enrique Paris; to respond to health initiatives such as the zero co-payment, Jaime Mañalich enters… Criticism for the migratory crisis?, then the former director of Migration, Álvaro Bellolio, intervenes. To criticize the work of the Boric Government in security or in matters related to the Carabineros?, then the voice of his former Undersecretary of the Interior, Juan Francisco Galli, emerges. And for the constitutional debate?, for this emerges the figure of Jaime Bellolio, the former spokesman of La Moneda. He is joined by Karla Rubilar, the former Minister of Social Development, who regularly has a space as a panelist in ‘Mucho Gusto’, Mega’s morning show.
“If you look at the high level of exposure and opinions – practically daily – of several of his closest former ministers from March 11 onwards, what we are seeing is an expression of ‘piñerismo’ and, of course, you can see that the hand of the former President is behind. It is enough for a minister of (Gabriel) Boric to make an announcement or slide a criticism of the previous management and jump one of his former collaborators, “says the psychologist.
There is another element to take into account: on more than one occasion Mario Desbordes, former president of National Renewal and former minister of Piñera, has pointed out – almost in a tone of denunciation – that the former ruler harbors the desire to return for the third time to La Moneda and, for this, he can not let history take care of it, at a tired pace, to bury his second step at the head of the Executive. Not a few fell from their seats when they heard or read this statement in the media, even more so considering the very low levels of popularity that he came to have immediately after the social outbreak and in the twilight of his presidential term, where many of his own political sector remember his figure with resentment or suspicion.
“Everything that he did and did not do in his government is of an erroneous and harmful entity for the country of a gigantic magnitude. I read the current Constitution and one immediately notices the barbarity he did,” says lawyer Hermógenes Pérez de Arce, one of the most bitter and historic rivals of the former president, who highlights this somewhat negligent attitude in the face of the outbreak of violence.
As is logical in a democracy, there are those who do not believe in this thesis. “Piñera doesn’t move the needle. It’s a bit like (Michelle) Bachelet. (Ricardo) Lagos and (Eduardo) Frei did move the needle,” says Patricio Guajardo, an analyst more identified with the center-right, who does not believe there is coordination. He believes, on the other hand, that former ministers intervene in the debate in their personal capacity. He accepts that Piñera’s eventual intervention would not be entirely convenient, which is more than enough reason to subject him to a rigorous ostracism in the media. He also thinks that any intervention would be an own goal like those that – in his opinion – are often committed by the Government.
“It must be terrible for an intelligent man with such a big ego to be so contained,” he says, “but he’s not going to speak until September 5. After that they’re all going to talk again,” Guajardo adds. Pérez de Arce, on the other hand, believes that no one can be so naïve to rule out the hypothesis.
“I have no knowledge of concrete facts, but knowing his personality, there is no doubt that he is in permanent contact with his closest collaborators of the center-right, those same ones who hold him in high regard but hidden, because they know that his popularity is minimal. It’s a cod,” he says. “He’s a man with a lot of phone conversation,” adds Pérez de Arce.
Lawyer and analyst Jorge “Pirincho” Navarrete has a somewhat more nuanced view, even though he professes a more progressive view of politics. While it is a hypothesis that seems plausible, it is also true that the future of Piñera is at least nebulous, if not non-existent, judging by the low levels of popularity that his figure holds. And given that history does not reserve a significant share of prominence in the future of the country, his personal expectations are not high in a post-plebiscite scenario, so it would make little sense to coordinate a communication strategy of this type.

“He is not going to return to the Presidency, so I have severe doubts that what we call ‘piñerismo’ has any kind of entity. And while it is true that there may be some degree of coordination, I do not think it has left Apoquindo 3000, “he points out, referring to the address where the former President has his office. For the lawyer, Piñera does not have that circle of followers and close collaborators whose loyalty survives far beyond his Presidency, “something that is much clearer in the cases of (Michelle) Bachelet and (Ricardo) Lagos,” he adds.
But Piñera is a man who perseveres in his efforts. In fact, the former spokesman for the second Piñerista term, the UDI Jaime Bellolio, one of his closest collaborators, recognizes that Piñera “has been seen by different people, in the line of sharing and listening to different points of view and perspectives on the future.” And he adds: “I have met several times with (former) President Piñera, and he is obviously concerned about the current situation, as he made it clear when – along with the other former Presidents – they were invited to the ceremony on July 5.”
Bellolio flatly rejects the hypothesis that Piñera has assumed the role of ventriloquist, stating that the sectors of the left “do nothing more than ratify that for them it is impossible to think that someone can be in a different position than the official one, and they fall into the same thing that their traditional spokesmen have said, which is to despise the difference and disqualify it for the most varied reasons.”
“If we have been asked for interviews or talks (in the media), it is because it is considered that our point of view, autonomous and personal, represents a look within the center-right and the political transversality that today is found in the Rejection. And obviously, because in the past we had to play different roles, both in Parliament, in the Government, in municipalities, etc. (former) President Piñera has his own voice, just as we have those of us who were part of the Government,” says the current panelist of “El debate de Chile”, a program broadcast by Chilevisión and in which he performseña defending the Rejection option.
 
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Original source in Spanish