Did Success Spoil the Concertación?
Did Success Spoil the Concertación?
Peter Siavelis of Wake Forest University writes about the challenges ahead for Chile’s two dominant political coalitions in the new issue of Americas Quarterly,out May 7. View the preview article.
For the center-right coalition that won the presidential election this year, governing may prove as difficult as renewing the once-dominant Concertación that since 1990 had made Chile a political and economic model in the region.
Latin America’s political pendulum has shifted markedly to the Left in the last decade, with presidents of populist or social democratic bents sweeping into power across the region. But some analysts have pointed to the election of Chilean President Sebastián Piñera as the beginning of what could be a swing back to the Right.
They’re wrong. A more accurate reading of Chile’s January election is that the center-left Concertación coalition lost—not that the center-right Coalición por el Cambio won. It is now clear, in the wake of the calamitous February 27 earthquake and tsunami, that both of the country’s political coalitions have an uphill struggle to win public support and trust. The Piñera government must capitalize on its can-do image while demonstrating that it is concerned about the poor. The Concertación must demonstrate that it can effectively respond to the demands of the population, including opening up its closed political clique.
The heaviest burden may be on the Concertación, one of the longest-lasting and most successful coalitions in Latin American history. The success of the Concertación, which governed Chile since its return to democracy in 1990, was due to its ability to devise a formula for governing based on consensus among the disparate collection of center-left political parties that opposed the military government of Augusto Pinochet. The strategy also involved negotiation with powerful players such as the military. This formula ushered in high levels of economic growth, impressive strides in eliminating poverty and remarkable political stability—a model example for democratic transition around the hemisphere.
Read the full text of the article at www.AmericasQuarterly.org.
Peter Siavelis is associate professor of political science and director of the Latin American and Latino Studies Program at Wake Forest University.
