“Suddenly, the middle class, who had just come out of poverty, had to take care of their parents in a country where medicines are among the highest in the world compared to the purchasing power of the people, a scenario that caused a feeling of enormous frustration “.
Added to this was the evidence that a good part of the privileges of the elites had remained unchanged in previous decades.
“Due to the economic growth of recent years, more people had and have access to the University, but many of them ended up verifying that this was not enough to progress,” says Elgueta. “The perception of differences with the elites then became more evident and from discontent it turned to anger.”
That panorama, which led to the outbreak of 2019, increased the desire for changes in the political scene after three decades of governments of the two traditional coalitions. The need for this oxygenation grows even more amid the emergence of new cases of corruption from the top of power.
On Tuesday the 9th, the Chamber of Deputies approved a political trial to remove President Piñera for alleged irregularities that occurred in 2010 in the sale of a controversial mining project in the Virgin Islands, a scandal revealed in the investigation by the Pandora Papers.
However, the prosecution did not succeed in the Chilean Senate, where the opposition did not have enough votes to move this proposal forward.
In the midst of that agitated political climate and an ongoing Constitutional Convention, Chileans will go to the polls on Sunday to elect the next president.
The result is uncertain – by law, it is forbidden to broadcast polls from 15 days before the elections – but everything indicates that Chile will have a president as of March 11 who will not emerge from either of the two forces that monopolized the government in the last 16 years: Nueva Mayoría, from former president Michelle Bachelet, and Chile Vamos, from current president Piñera.
Chile is getting ready to start a new path. The no-minor question to clear is whether the turn will be to the right or to the left.