Chile Elections 2021: What are the economic proposals of the main presidential candidates?

Ten days before the elections, Chile He listened on Thursday to the economic programs of five of his seven presidential candidates at a time when the country is going through a post-pandemic inflationary surge and where more and more voices are demanding a more egalitarian socioeconomic model.

At a business fair forum Enade 2021Several contenders in the November 21 elections presented their proposals, which ranged from a more social model to the opposite: reducing the role of the State in one of the most neoliberal countries in the world.

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At the center of all the presentations was, yes, the recovery after the covid-19 pandemic, which caused the economy to fall by 5.8% in 2020, forced the country to increase its external debt historically and rose by Inflation exceptionally, leading the Central Bank to take unprecedented measures in decades.

“A NEW SOCIAL CONTRACT”

The former left-wing student leader Gabriel Boric, one of the great favorites, reaffirmed the idea that Chile “needs a new social contract”, a demand that emanated from the streets during the social crisis that began in 2019 with massive marches for equality.

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“Stability is only real and lasting if it is built on the foundation of a robust social safety net. All Chileans need to be protected from the risks of disease and old age “, he expressed.

Its program aims to strengthen public services by increasing tax collection by 8 percentage points of GDP, raising taxes on the richest and avoiding evasion.

The far-right candidate José Antonio Kast. (Martin BERNETTI / AFP).

On the contrary, the other favorite according to the polls, the far right Jose Antonio Kast, presented proposals based on cutting and optimizing state spending and reducing taxes for large companies.

“We are going to reduce bureaucracy, we are going to create an agile state without barriers for entrepreneurs. (…) The right and the left have used the State as a booty “, he stated.

The polls, increasingly questioned by their mistakes in the last electoral appointments, agree that no candidate will win in the first round and that they will go to the ballot on December 19 closet and Boric, two candidates outside the two great center-right and center-left blocs that have been ruling since 1990.

CRISIS POSPANDEMIA

The official candidate Sebastian Sichel, former minister of the current conservative president Sebastián Piñera, assured that Boric’s proposal “would scare away investment” and that Kast’s responds to social demands.

“The true formula for success is one in which effort is part of political commitment”, affirmed the candidate of the center-right, who runs the risk of not reaching the second round.

Meanwhile, the candidate of the center-left, the Christian Democrat Yasna Provoste, emphasized “rebuilding the country” and “dealing with an overheated economy after the COVID-19 pandemic.”

He also presented his proposal Marco Enriquez-Ominami, a progressive with little support, but Eduardo Artés (from the radical left) and Franco Parisi, a controversial economist who resides in the United States and who will not be in the elections due to having covid-19, were absent.

“It is legitimate and desirable that there are different opinions and views. These differences enrich and are part of democracy “, said the current president, Sebastián Piñera, who also intervened in Enade.

According to the president, Chile “It has already managed to exceed the levels of activity prior to the crisis” and its economy will expand above 11% this year, although inflation worries, which in October registered a rise of 1.3% compared to the previous month, the CPI to twelve months higher in the last 13 years.

In addition to the economic challenges, whoever replaces Piñera in March 2022 will also have to take charge of a country mired in a strong social and institutional crisis that has remained since 2019 and implement, if approved, the rules of the new Constitution.

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