Michelle Bachelet’s Legislative Majority
Published in Warscapes
On November
17, 2013 Chile held its sixth presidential election and seventh legislative
election since the return of democracy in 1989.
The first
four presidential elections were won by a coalition made up of socialists and
Christian democrats (Nueva Mayoría). Initially founded as an opposition front
to the authoritarian government, Nueva Mayoría evolved into a powerful
center-left electoral machine. Under its umbrella, Patricio Aylwin, Eduardo
Frei, Ricardo Lagos and Michelle Bachelet were each elected to govern for one
term.
Things
changed with the fifth presidential election—held in 2009—which marked the
demise of the coalition. After twenty years of opposition, the right wing
Alianza coalition took power by sweeping into the presidency. Two decades after
the transition to democracy, Sebastián Piñera became the first right-winger to
be democratically elected since Jorge Alessandri in 1958.
Piñera’s
first couple years did not go smoothly. One issue had to do with the fact that
the coalition which endorsed his candidacy had little to no experience in the
executive branch. Most cabinet ministers appointed to the first cabinet were
independents or businessmen from the private sector. This was bound to be a
liability if political affairs took a downturn, which they eventually did.
In the midst
of the massive student protests of 2011-2012 popular opinion held that
Piñera’s government simply could not
solve pressing political. According to the well-known polling firm Adimark, the
great majority of people did not approve of the president or of his cabinet. In
fact, during the turmoil, Piñera plummeted to the lowest approval ratings since
the transition to democracy.
Government
response was swift. In early 2011, Piñera nominated four incumbent Alianza
senators to key cabinet posts. This gave his administration an important boost
in political dexterity. Among other things, the new cabinet ministers
disembarked with the mission to maintain power past the end of the term. A mean
to that objective inevitably involved toppling Bachelet’s potential reelection
prospective.
After
leaving office in 2010, Bachelet had accepted a post at the United Nations as
the Executive Director of UN Women. Based out of New York, she was only able to
travel to Santiago a few times in her two-and-a-half year tenure at the UN.
Nevertheless, Bachelet maintained the high approval ratings she enjoyed at the
end of her presidential term even while she was gone. Her popularity approached
an unprecedented 70 percent during her
absence.
The
government’s electoral strategy suffered its first major setback in the mid-term
local elections of 2012. The symbolic win of the center-left coalition paved
the way for a safe return of Bachelet from New York. A new and powerful
coalition, in comparison to the old and fatigued coalition that lost the 2009
election, would be her vehicle back in to national politics.
In early
2013 Bachelet accepted to compete in the state-funded primaries scheduled for
June that year. As an ex president, and the main alternative to Piñera’s
unpopular administration, she hardly needed to campaign against her fellow
coalition candidates. She won the primary election with an astonishing 73
percent of the vote. On the first day of July she officially accepted the
nomination to be Nueva Mayoría’s presidential hopeful.
Beyond
Bachelet’s remarkable return, the 2013 presidential election has been unusual
for a number of reasons. Most obviously, this year’s contest marks the first
time since Chile’s transition to democracy that the incumbent Alianza will be
forced to defend the presidency. The election is also unusual because it will
be the first time that nine candidates will compete against each other. In
previous elections the number of candidates fluctuated between three (in 1989)
and six (in 1999). Interestingly, this election represents the first time that
voting will be voluntary. In previous elections it was compulsory. Taken
together, the number of candidates and the new voting scheme are bound to add
uncertainty to the result.
Still, every
indication that Bachelet would regain office proved accurate. National polls showed Bachelet a majority of
support, with a comfortable margin of 20 percent over her closest contender,
Alianza’s Evelyn Matthei. What remained unclear is where whether Bachelet will
win in the first or in the second round of voting. That was cleared up this
past week—with 47 percent of the vote to Matthei’s 25 percent, Bachelet was
unable to clear the necessary threshold to avoid a second round.
One
explanation for Bachelet’s commanding lead in the polls can be found not just
in her high approval ratings, but also in the public’s dissatisfaction with
Piñera. The messy nomination processthat Alianza undertook to nominate their
candidate is also to blame. The center right coalition nominated three
candidates in less than a year before finally settling with Matthei, who until
recently served as Piñera’s Minister of Labor and Social Security.
In the first
six months of 2013, the Alianza saw three former cabinet ministers rise as
presidential hopefuls: Laurence Golborne, Andrés Allamand and Pablo Longueira.
While Golborne was removed early on in the race, Allamand and Longueira battled
it out in the June primaries. Shortly after Longueira beat Allamand, he stepped
down claiming health issues. Longueira’s party reluctantly nominated Matthei.
Since it is
increasingly likely that Bachelet win the presidential battle against Matthei,
the focus of the election has shifted from the final results to Bachelet’s
presidential agenda after she wins the presidency. Political analysts’ in the
country have focused particularly on whether she will be able to accomplish
three major reforms that have driven her campaign: tax reform, education reform
and constitutional reform.
The sticking
point for each of these reforms is found in the constitutional quorums required
to pass them. With respect to tax reform, Chilean law requires only a simple
majority of the chamber of deputies and the senate. It gets quite a bit more complicated in the
other two areas. In order to reform the
education system, 4/7 or 3/5 of the chamber of deputies must support the move,
and constitutional reform is more difficult still, demanding quorums of 3/5 or
2/3 of the chamber of deputies and senate.
The latter
two majorities have never been met. Those that designed the legislative electoral
system purposely engineered a confusing and counterintuitive institution in
which parties form coalitions, and coalitions tie in Congress. Despite the fact
that though one coalition might win a substantial amount of votes, those votes
do not translate directly into seats. Thus, the winning coalition’s ability to
govern is blocked by an intentional subvention on behalf of the coalition that
fails to win a majority
This
intentional distortion makes it highly unlikely that any coalition will account
for more than 4/7 of the senators and deputies during the next presidential
term (2014-2018). This has particularly harsh implications for Bachelet’s
agenda, given that keeping her promises depends directly on reaching the
extraordinarily high constitutional quorums. The results could be dire, for
Bachelet and her ruling coalition.
Bachelet
would be well advised to heed the lessons learned by the current government.
Piñera’s abysmal support derives from the high expectations of an electorate
that was promised substantial benefits under a conservative government.
Piñera’s failure to provide solutions to the problems of middle and lower class Chileans have led once
hopeful voters to side with the opposition. This is a situation that is likely
to repeat itself, if Bachelet’s coalition does not win the legislative election
with a majority large enough to help the president-elect keep her promises.
| posted by Kenneth Bunker at 12.00 AM| permalink|
