The New Piñera Dictatorship

Artigo do colaborador Danilo Granato, que está acompanhando de perto as manifestações no Chile

Foto: AFP

In less than 30 years after claiming hard-earned democratic rights, Chile is victim of another dictatorship. It’s a modern dictatorship. One that doesn’t involve a coup, or a revolution. A dictatorship so subtle that when you realize it’s happening, you’re already subdued. This new form of dictatorship is being presided by the current head of state Sebastian Piñera.

Sounds like a pretty strong claim, but as I said, it’s so subtle that’s hard to see. A few intelligent people can perceive it, but they seem like the donkey from George Orwell’s “Animal Farm”.

I don’t want to be a donkey who keeps silent and lets, through inaction, iron-fist dictators claim power. That’s why I’m laying the facts as I see them and letting the readers draw their own conclusions.

Throughout his second government, the disregard for the population they were supposed to serve was apparent in Piñera’s team. These weren’t only under-the-curtain symptoms such as increasingly long lines in under-staffed, ill-stocked hospitals; high water scarcity due to a historical 10-year long drought; a 10% increase in the electricity bill while it should have been lower; and suspicious deaths of environmental leaders.

On top of aggravating peoples living conditions, the team of ministers made sure to laugh openly at the demise of the population. Citizens heard they could “play bingo and socialize while waiting for the doctor”, or “buy flowers” when it was the only item with deflated prices. On the other side of the table, the government was giving “forgiveness” to multi-millionaire corruption scandals in police and military forces.

All this happened while people were routinely being treated in hospital sofas, agriculture and forestry were over-exploiting privatized water sources, communal leaders were “being suicided” for protecting the environment, and hard-working middle class were retiring in sub-living conditions with pensions far below the minimum wage.

The tipping point was a mere 4 cents increase in the peak-hour metro fare, to which the population heard from the transport minister they should “take the transport earlier” if they would like to avoid the fare hike.

Under these conditions, no wonder the population exploded in protest. The government response? Deploy the military forces in the streets and propose a series of laughable palliative measures that would barely alleviate the daily grind of the population. Proposals which only will broaden the social gap by enriching business owners and putting the country’s finances under permanent strain.

We’re not short of examples. There’s the medicine reform in which government will subsidize remedies from colluded private pharmacies that charge over-inflated rates. There’s also the “catastrophic health insurance” in which the government will pay for health insurance companies to deal with illnesses the public service should but can’t provide. There’s also the bizarre “guaranteed minimum wage” in which the government will use tax-payer’s money to complement the salary of underpaid workers. There’s the public “boost” to private pensions, where the government will pour money into ill-paying, profit-making retirement funds companies.

It is an abnormal form of neoliberalism in which the government gives citizen taxes to private companies, so these companies provide basic services the government itself failed to provide.

Not to count the proposal with personal gain like removing the housing tax for people 70 years old and over. This in a country where a common 70-year pension is not enough to buy enough food or medical care, let alone a house, but the president is conveniently turning 70 years old next year and doesn’t lack properties to pay taxes on (which, by the way, he already owes thousands of dollars of unpaid housing tax).

The list of proposals goes on, but they clearly don’t tackle the underlying needs of the people, and still are committing away public funds to private pockets, putting Piñera’s successor in an extremely difficult position – endure a severe constraint in the public budget or pay the political price to abolish populist policies. 

And that’s not all. Due to social unrest and the military pressure on the streets, these matters are of “extreme urgency”. So, deputies and senators are urged to approve these measures, without proper time to deliberate, and are pressed by public opinion to be in favour or otherwise be taxed as going against the people’s interests. No wonder the president is smiling while he declares war on his population.

In the meantime, as events unfold on the streets, we are getting to know human rights violations from military abuse and cases of undercounting and concealing of deaths by the government. The oppression is escalating to a point where people are being censored and getting arrested inside their own houses, completely outside the jurisdiction of the current exceptional state. As more recent facts are being studied, it is coming to light that these powers are even disobeying the country’s constitution.

It is clear that, right now, Piñera doesn’t have social legitimacy. He once had, scantly, in the elections 4 years ago. With less than 27% of the votes of the electorate in 2017, he was “entitled” to the power regardless of his results and social approval since then. Without public support and with the military by their side, Piñera and his team don’t seem worried to propose hasted laws that would create a political deadlock in which only he and his friends win and everybody else loses. All during a difficult time of social fear, concealed military abuse and overruling of the constitution.

If this is not a dictatorship, I don’t know what it is.

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