He finished the month of November of 2017 and President Sebastián Piñera ensured their passage to the second round after earning little more than the 36 percent support in the polls, almost 14 points more than its main competitor, the representative of the former new majority , Alejandro Guillier. That day and as it was the keynote of all his campaign, sentenced shamelessly: “We have to recover the lost time, we need to regain the leadership, dynamism and progress that we have taken”.
Growth, investment and security were the pillars of the campaign that led to Piñera to La Moneda for the second time. “Today in Chile we have a very bad government but a great country, so what you need to do is replace this bad government and take back our great country”, then candidate of Chile are going to the newspaper press of Curico, said June 18, 2017 phrases were repeated many times, which marked the temperature of the contest, were key in his victory and now transformed into a boomerang that his administration did not see coming.
Corridos already eight months from installation, to the currency your worst nightmare was made reality: the finding that economic indicators are under budget, added this to has already passed enough water under the bridge to appeal, again, to the Letter of blame to the previous administration of Michelle Bachelet.
To the 7.1 of covering the mobile quarter July-September, as he published the center of microdata of the University of Chile, and unemployment which is located above the compared with the previous year, joined now the Imacec of September and that, with its 2.3% of variation noted as the month of slower growth since the same date to 2017.
At La Moneda they know of the stony that it becomes the way economic figures when it comes, they are clear that it is and will be one of the key factors that boost a possible continuity of the right in power or affects essential way in which history will repeat , once again, be a parenthesis between center-left administrations.
Given the high expectations generated in the campaign, currently the Government has little room for manoeuvre, which was reflected in the answer given on Monday the Finance Minister, Felipe Larraín, on the low economic expansion of September: “I believe you” We are pleased to have lived that experience of that week with only two business days, but this also has an effect in terms of production, in terms of the growth of the economy.” Blame the long holiday theory does not satisfy many in Chile are going, but is fully shared by Pinera, according to its close, while stressing at the offices of the West Wing of the Palace trust that will be achieved to fulfill the promise of the end of the year c on a 4% growth.
Regardless of that, the discussion that gets these days on the table is how dangerous was the speech of the campaign, both which bet to ensure an almost automatic activation of the engines of the economy, as he condemned – repeatedly – the explanations of the management bacheletista on the impact of the external factor in the problems of the local economy.
Bad calculation employed by the former Minister of finance, Alberto Arenas, was repeatedly justified around the end of the gold cycle commodity, situation that right in its opposition role not let pass, arguing that the main factor of the slowdown were reforms urging the Government of Bachelet.
As if it were a fable, the ironies of life now put Pinera administration in a situation not very far. Own Confederation of production and trade (CPC) was which was estimated at about 60 thousand jobs that may be affected once the recently announced social security reform regime. In parallel, an external situation threatens with strongly beating the local economy: the trade war between the United States and China.
From the political point of view, in the ruling party not they doubt that the complexity of the scenario is due to the high expectations generated by the speech of President Piñera and the slogan of “better times”. A member of renovación Nacional said that a mistake was attacking the previous Government of Michelle Bachelet as it was done, accusing him of “being so bad, awful and frightening”, because when things are so polarized added, truth is that “the solution is not so easy and the” reality above wasn’t so awful”.
For the doctor in political sciences, Cristóbal Bellolio, consistent explanations of La Moneda, by very reasonable they are, tend to accumulate and when these don’t match the structural campaign promise, “starts to water the message of ‘ times ‘ best ‘. In politics perceptions are crucial and perceptions are not always realities.”
The perception which exists today in the politico-parlamentario field matches that there in the business community. This was endorsed in the business perception report, prepared by the Central Bank, where nearly 200 enterprises from across the country were consulted and whose main conclusions were that “the expectations of recovery were oversized”.
The strategy to overcome the bad time, same Monday November 5 that were announced publicly the last Imacec, President Piñera – numbers during the political Committee with his ministers – decided to put discussion immediately to three projects that are they are in the legislative procedure, and that each, by itself, carries with it a burden difficult to ignore: safe classroom, the regularization of immigration and the rise of the Sename subsidy.
A decision that is not random. To be complicated with the latest economic indicators down, La Moneda decided to divert attention and point looks at one of the pillars which supported his campaign, security. In Palace explained that Piñera made the decision to play is this letter, without first consulting his coalition, which had to settle for sitting down to talk with the Government after which the Minister spokeswoman, Cecilia Pérez, had already made the respective announcements .
Citizen security in all formats is a battle of long standing on the right, is an edge that pays off fast in the eyes of the public and which is not alien to Piñera. Just remember phrases of his first Government, as that which “is over criminals the party” and the promise of “ending the revolving door”, upon which the President himself acknowledged after that hand had happened and that the problem was much more co mplejo that what he had promised in the campaign of the year 2009.
“If you are not doing well in one, at least that people feel that you’re doing delivery, i.e., delivering results in the other, the Security (…). Here and there is a duckling who walks slow, you have to show that the other is quick”, sentenced Bellolio, who believes that safe classroom project works perfectly in that area.
On this strategy, on the right agreed: “this is politics, the art of politics”.
