Gabriel Boric: this is the left that will govern Chile and this will be the role that the Communist Party will play

Is clear on Chile that the president-elect Gabriel Boric it will need a great capacity for dialogue and reaching broad agreements to govern. With a climate of polarization, an ambitious social reform agenda, a faltering economy and a fragmented Congress, the leftist leader has no alternative but to seek consensus, one of which will have to come within his own coalition. And the task will not be without tension.

Boric, who at 35 is the youngest elected president in the history of Chile, came to power as head of the I Approve Dignity coalition, made up of the Broad Front (his party) and the Communist Party (PC). This alliance led his rival, the ultra-conservative José Antonio Kast, to label the deputy and former student leader a “communist candidate” and accuse him of being a puppet of his CP allies.

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The fears and uncertainty that were sown around the candidacy of Boric During the campaign they were reflected in the markets, which on Monday 20 fell sharply after their comfortable victory over Kast.

For many analysts, the question now revolves around whether Boric will maintain the moderation that it showed in recent weeks or if it will resume its re-founding speeches and implement profound changes in Chile.

“That is one of the great doubts. In fact, we do not know if the president will be the Boric who campaigned in the first round with more radical positions or the second-round candidate, with calmer positions. The question now is whether he will continue to be moderate or if he will return to the extreme, to his origins, and will he be the same radical that he was during the time he was in Congress and in the first round.“, The Chilean political scientist tells El Comercio Patrick Navia.

Gabriel Boric, during last Sunday’s speech after his victory by almost 12 points over José Antonio Kast.

Aware of it, Boric He promised in his triumphant speech last Sunday that any change would be gradual and fiscally responsible. “The times to come will not be easy. We will have to face the social, economic and health consequences of the worst pandemic that our country has experienced in more than a century. It will be difficult, no doubt, but we are going to advance with short but firm steps, learning from our history”, Said the elected president.

For Jaime Baeza, academic at the Institute of Public Affairs of the University of Chile, it is clear that the leftist president it is going to have to open up to consensus. “He starts from a dialogue, from a negotiation, where not everything will be possible from the first day, because the triumphs are not necessarily his own but with the help of other political forces.”, Points to this newspaper.

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Boric’s left

One of the political forces that brought him to power is the Communist Party, his main ally for the second round and with whom he shares important points in common, but also some differences.

Navia considers that the left of Boric It is one that is new in some respects, and that in others resembles the traditional left, nostalgic for a past that did not live.

“There is a significant generation gap between the left of Boric and the traditional left. Boric is younger, he was born 35 years ago, he has no memories of the dictatorship, of the Berlin Wall, he does not feel particularly identified with the Cuban Revolution, he does not belong to that world. But in other dimensions, Boric’s left is also an old left. Boric he feels heir to Salvador Allende, who clearly represents another moment and another economic model than the one now defended by the left”, He says.

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Gabriel Boric supporters with a photo of the late President Salvador Allende. September 19, 2021

He adds that on human rights issues they are clearly more social democratic, while on issues of the role of the state they are more from the traditional left. “They want the state to grow. In general, they believe that private initiative or profit, generating money, is bad, they prefer that this not be with public resources and that makes it part of a nostalgic left. In that sense, they are a rather nostalgic, pro-state and anti-private sector left.”.

Baeza, on the other hand, highlights that the left of Boric It is very different from the traditional ones in Latin America and it is not anchored to the traditional figures of that ideological corner.

“Sure he has a respect for Allende and other historical figures, but he has nothing to do with classical Marxist parties. For example, Boric He is absolutely against the dictatorships of Venezuela and Nicaragua and he says so openly. It is a left that has more to do with the European left, with Michelle Bachelet’s left. Regardless of whether or not one agrees with the president-elect, it is recognized that he is absolutely distant from any vision of Venezuela or something like that, in addition to that in Chile The conditions are not in place for something like this to happen“, considers.

Navia emphasizes that this is a left that has not had experience in government and comes to power promising many changes, including redefining the economic model, which generates many uncertainties. “Boric and his team will have to define themselves soon in case they are going to continue with this idea of ​​re-founding or if they are going to opt for what the more moderate left has done in Latin America in the last 30 years, which are rather reforms”, Says the expert.

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The role of the Communist Party

The relationship with Communist Party it will be a key point to see what kind of government finally executes Gabriel Boric and it could represent a serious obstacle if the newly elected head of state favors moderation.

“The Communist Party will want to be in government, but also in the streets. The PC is going to want to tell Boric: ‘This is your program, you have to respect it.’ And therefore they are going to keep up with mobilizations, with protests to put pressure on Boric from the left. The Communist Party is going to try that the Boric government is not again a social democratic government, like those that existed before in Chile with Bachelet and with Lagos”Says Navia.

And he insists that the relationship Boric will have with the PC will depend on what type of government the president wants to do. “If Boric goes to the left, the relationship with the PC will be great, but he will have financial problems in the center. We cannot know what kind of relationship he will have with the Communist Party because we do not know if Boric is going to be from a slightly tougher left or from a slightly more moderate left.”.

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In the second round Boric made changes in his program to try to reach more people from the center.

Also, remember that many of the people who voted for Boric He did it just because he wasn’t Kast. Boric got only 25% in the first roundTherefore, the president-elect will also have to agree with other political sectors in order to carry out his agenda.

In this scenario, the first challenge for Boric It will be to form a cabinet that delivers certainty to the markets, to investors, to the actors involved in the shortest possible time, says Baeza. In the 109-year history of the Communist Party, one of its members has never served as head of a La Moneda political ministry.

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“The president-elect has been very clear in pointing out that he does not have the keys to total power, much less, therefore, he has to enter into a dialogue with sectors that did not support him, but also with the help of technical teams and experts who Obviously they are going to gradually give reforms that are mostly necessary, but for which there are no answers from one day to the next.”, Adds the expert.

Navia points out that one of the most important signals that Boric will have to give is in his election of the finance minister. “And he will have to name it soon because instability is going to start to develop. There are a couple of more moderate people who appeared as possible candidates, but who have already announced that they are not going to be ministers, so I think this is going to begin to be elucidated relatively soon, not only with the cabinet and in particular with the Minister of Finance. , but when you also see what your priorities are”.

The elected president of Chile, Gabriel Boric (right), shakes the hand of President Sebastián Piñera, during a meeting at the presidential palace of La Moneda, on December 20, 2021. (Photo: AFP).

So far, it is assumed that at least one of the ministries would fall to some figure of the Communist Party, among which names such as Karol Cariola or Camila Vallejo, two young deputies from a renewed wing of the group, are being considered.

“We understand, and this is how Gabriel Boric himself has expressed it, that it is important to build a political alliance that supports the path of change […] Our fundamental principle is to count on allies and allies of this transformation project, because the people made a very clear mandate and gave Gabriel Boric confidence with high hopes to push forward a transformation project that accompanies and takes care of the path to the new Constitution, but also complement it with reforms that are important”Vallejo said on Monday when commenting on the possible composition of the cabinet of the new left-wing government.

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