A “sigh like when he arrived at La Moneda”, predicts Kenneth Bunker, PhD in Political Science from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), will be the first reaction of President Gabriel Boric if, against all odds, he wins the I approve. This, given that the polls, three weeks before the plebiscite on September 4, continue to give an advantage to the option of Rejection of the constitutional text.
According to the latest publication of the Cadem survey, The 15th of August, eight points separate the Rejection (which obtained 46%, one point less than the previous measurement) from the Approval (which has 38%, one more than the last poll).
“I guarantee that as a Government we are going to push what the parties that are part of the Government have agreed”, was what Boric said last week, a day after on Thursday the two coalitions that support his mandate assumed what the President had “urged” them to do. That is to say, the I Approve Dignity coalition, made up of the Broad Front (FA), the Communist Party (PC) and the Social Green Regionalist Federation (FRVS), and the parties of Democratic Socialism, such as the Socialist Party (PS), the for Democracy (PPD), the Liberal Party (PL) and the Radical Party (PR), reached a agreement on reforms to the constitutional text prior to the plebiscite.
A document that, as many explained, “clarifies” issues of the constitutional proposal that -in the opinion of the center-left parties- have not been understood by citizens, such as the limits of indigenous consent and ensuring the heritability of pension funds , in addition to that relating to home ownership. And that it also directly commits to eliminate aspects of the constitutional proposal, such as the consecutive re-election of the President and the parliamentary initiative with fiscal spending (if it had the sponsorship of the President of the day).
In this way, the President is shouldering the fulfillment of this agreement, which he himself helped to close with telephone calls and messages to the parties, even the night the pact was finalized, after 11:00 p.m.
“Out of survival instinct, he will be willing to place what remains of his political capital behind the objective of having understandings with the opposition to build the political viability of the reforms that he wants to carry out,” says Marco Moreno, PhD in Political Science at the Universiteit Leiden in the Netherlandsabout the role that the President will have in the scenario of a narrow triumph of the Approval.
What you would gain and lose with a narrow or broad Approval win
“There is a lot of work that must be done, there are many things promised on the table,” says Bunker about what would come to the President.
According to Moreno, if Boric partially achieves the constitutional reforms to which they committed as a left and part of the implementation of the Constitution in his mandate, “he goes down in history as someone who could face an adverse scenario, in reference to the political correlation of forces, and that he managed to build understandings to make his government project viable”.
On the other hand, if he does not achieve this, and does not carry out his government program either, “obviously the citizenry is going to punish this coalition in an upcoming presidential election and will look for a different option. Even there the specter of right-wing populism looms large. Because in some way it weighs on their shoulders to be a generation that comes to alternate power, ”says Moreno.
And he adds that, if the scenario of an Approval that wins comfortably, Boric “can probably be remembered as the President of the transition between the Constitution of 80 and the new Constitution. If we make a simile, he would be like Patricio Aylwin. It becomes the arbiter to carry out the implementation of the new Constitution, but also the agreement prior to the plebiscite. Of which he is guarantor”.
Moreno explains that, in his opinion, the Constitutional Convention disputed the President’s agenda until now: “They wanted to link (the Government), even before taking office, the result of their management to the constituent process. That has had costs.” To carry the implementation of the Magna Carta and the constitutional reforms forward, Boric should build understandings with a fragmented Congress: “It requires a set of 70 laws that have to be implemented between now and 2026, and the agreed reforms,” he points out.
The greatest challenges will be in carrying out reforms on aspects that “substantially alter” the political regime, constitutional principles, fundamental rights, the regional State and reform mechanisms. To achieve this, you will need to add the favorable vote of 2/3 of both Chambers or 4/7 plus a plebiscite; the rest of the subjects will only require this last quorum.
This means that, in order to reform substantive issues, the pro-government left requires the votes of the Christian Democracy (DC), the People’s Party (PDG) and the National Renewal (RN) in the Chamber of Deputies; and in the Senate, from the DC, RN and from the independent Karim Antonio Bianchi, according to the calculations of the iComputer Engineer and PhD in EducationErnest Laval.
Moreno assures that, although the President’s option -the Approval- wins at the polls, if it is with “a narrow victory, of the order of 48%, 52%, or 49%, 51%”, the Government is left with a complex representation : “There would be half of the country that does not agree with this process of change that the President is going to lead.”
Therefore, he affirms that this would force him to “be a promoter of agreements between the reformist sectors – those who from the beginning have been more open to agreeing reforms to the proposed constitutional text, Democratic Socialism – of his Government and the soft sectors of the opposition, such as Evópoli, and some sectors of the National Renewal”. All this with the objective –according to the political scientist– of giving his government “political viability”, which allows it to carry out the process of implementing the new Constitution.
Moreno insists that, if this scenario occurs, “a greater role in the government of the reformist sectors of the ruling party, the PS, the PPD, the PR and the PL” would be required.
“Not only does he have to control crime, the economy, immigration, the conflict in the so-called Southern Macrozone, the quarrels within the Constitution, but more importantly, implement the new Constitution and ensure its changes,” explains Bunker. He adds that, if there is a triumph of Approval, it will surely be a narrow one, so “there will be many people who are going to be very critical of everything that comes after.”
Thus, Bunker draws a route to follow “with many stones along the way, difficult to walk, with the possibility of tripping and making mistakes”, a scenario that –it states– It will serve the opposition to “mark all the points where Boric is wrong.”
He adds that the President may be able to “produce a constitutional text document, but it may be a transitory victory, because people could later ask for another constitutional process, because economic conditions do not improve, that is, it has nothing to do with the text itself, but with the conjunctural context”.
Jackson’s weakness
“Giorgio Jackson does not have a good relationship with Congress, I think that is well documented. That is a risk for the Government, do what you have to do. Whether it is to implement, reform a new Constitution or pass bills”, says Bunker about the head of the General Secretariat of the Presidency (Segpres), who is the link between the Executive and the Legislative.
Although parliamentarians who are members of the government base assure that Jackson’s stumbles are more of a right-wing torpedo, Moreno shares that criticism: “In either of the two scenarios, even if there is a consistent victory for the Approval, and also if the victory is narrow, the President is going to have to make adjustments to his government team. Evidently there are ministers who are weakened, with little capacity to carry out the initiatives that the Government has to implement. They have lost political capital.”
And it is that the last few weeks have not been easy for Minister Jackson. It all started with his statements in an interview through Twitter, where he assured that “our scale of values and principles around politics is not only far from the previous government, but I think that compared to a generation that preceded us, which could be identified with the same range of political spectrum, such as the center-left and the left”. On the other hand, a Comptroller’s opinion determined that Jackson “did not comply with the necessary disregard”, due to his role as receiver of the proposals of the parties for reforms to the new constitutional text and not of the initiatives of the parties that are going for the rejection.
“The problem is a political one, because Jackson is a good adviser to the President, a faithful, honest political ally, so it is a direct blow to the President to have to remove him,” explains Bunker, while assuring that he could work better in another position and that, Although it is necessary to do so, it would not make sense to change the cabinet before the plebiscite.
“The problem with Boric is that he likes to be involved in everything,” maintains the political scientist, a characteristic that he classifies as a “vulnerability of this government”, added to the fact that – in his opinion – he does not see “many people on the front line with the political experience, who have established themselves as negotiators, and who can present their own positions with a certain authority against any opposition”.
Moreno agrees and explains that Boric’s first design was to “remain as Head of State and Government, imitating what Aylwin had done in his mandate”, however, he assures that given the difficulties between the two souls that coexist in his governmental base , I approve of Dignity and Democratic Socialism, plus a political team that “has had difficulties in ordering the two coalitions behind the government project, had to assume more prominence and play the role of leader of the coalition.”
Bunker says that, if he wins approval by a narrow margin, Gabriel Boric will need negotiators with more political experience and, at this point, stresses that the government needs to “trust a little more in social democracy.”
“If you insist on generational renewal, you are going to encounter many problems, and what matters is that the bills pass. What people think is someone with the profile of Carolina Tohá, a person from the social democracy, who participated in the Coalition, but later repented, and today is aligned with Boric. I don’t know if she herself is the one who has to do it, but a person of that tradition is the spirit that she needs”, she points out.
In which foot is Boric if he wins the Rejection?
According to Bunker, “all crises present themselves as opportunities, that is a general principle”. He gives the example of the earthquake in 2010 and the situation that Piñera had to face the same year with the 33 miners trapped underground at a depth of 700 meters. However, he admits that his disapproval “could go down further” because of his Government’s link to the Approval option.
Above all, he says, that the Government once again have control over the agenda and they can begin to “manage the debate”, since, if the Rejection wins, “it is the Executive that has to send a proposal on how to continue this in The congress”.
