The ministerial balance in the Government is about to change and it is easy to anticipate which will be the main winners in the list of new appointments. There is a consensus in the ruling party that it is very likely that the Democratic Socialism parties (PS, PPD, PR, PL) will increase the number of sub-secretariats and, with this, change the balance in the Government. In the midst of these winds of change, the Democratic Revolution (RD) is the group that flies with the least tailwind.
In La Moneda they point out that there is a consensus on the need to change some sectoral portfolios and among the most prominent is the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage headed by Julieta Brodsky (Social Convergence). Although no one points to the DR as the most likely affected by the changes, it is clear that this group that was born in 2012, at the dawn of the student movement, is not in a position to go out and request greater weight in the cabinet, when one of The ministers questioned is its founder and current head of the Social Development portfolio, Giorgio Jackson.
Another who suffers the questioning of Palacio is the Minister of Education, Marco Antonio Ávila, although lately it has been pointed out that it would have been decided to keep him in office and strengthen him by reinforcing the undersecretary. Minister Ávila’s problems began last year, when he announced an additional week of vacation, but with the possibility of parents sending their children to school, without anticipating the inconvenience that this measure would cause. This announcement produced immediate criticism from the College of Teachers, from where they warned him that “we are not a nursery. This coming (to work), because you have to take care of some children, is not in our employment contract,” said Carlos Díaz, president of the organization.
Other impasse of the head of Education was the announcement of the reduction in the financing of the Bicentennial High Schools, a controversy in which he had to come out to retract himself, in addition to rectifying that these establishments would continue to exist with State financing. At the end of the year, and in addition to various ups and downs in the press with other educational authorities, Ávila figured as a possible change in the cabinet; however, today, he seems to be further from that due to his increasing approval.
In this scenario, the Minister of Social Development and key figure of the DR, Giorgio Jackson, faces this possible cabinet change as one of the weak links in the Government of President Gabriel Boric. Everyone agrees that his worst moment was when he headed the Ministry of the General Secretariat of the Presidency, because he never managed to establish a good relationship with parliamentarians and the Senate ended up being his worst enemy, to the point that it was speculated that, if the constitutional accusation in its Contra prospered in the Lower House, in the Upper House it was going to be difficult to stop his dismissal.
Fortunately for the minister –and the Government– this accusation did not prosper due to the absence of the necessary votes in the Chamber of Deputies and Deputies However, as revealed ThirdJackson’s style has caused concern in the President, which would have motivated him to draw attention to the tone he uses on his social networks.
But Minister Jackson’s problems came before that first cabinet change that removed him from the General Secretariat of the Presidency. One of his high points was when he declared, on a Twitch show, that “our scale of values is far from the generation that came before us.” The phrase crossed Parliament from the PPD to the Republican Party, from where they came out to tell him that he was guilty of moral superiority.
Today it is precisely the moral standards that take over the agenda of the day and put the DR in trouble. The controversy was born in show business, led by the deputy RD Maite Orsini, but the problem ended up installed in the political arena. The scandal began after the model Daniela Aránguiz, ex-wife of soccer player Jorge Valdivia, told in a morning that the deputy “talks with prosecutors to get people out of detention and makes their papers disappear.” Orsini categorically denied such facts and announced legal actions in this regard.
But the denial was not so categorical, as the general of the Carabineros Human Rights Directorate, Karina Soza, appeared, confirming to the press that the deputy Orsini had contacted her to request that she speak with the former soccer player Valdivia, due to certain irregularities in a control of identity that ended with the former athlete at the 37th Vitacura Police Station.
The historic 10 of La Roja would have spoken with the deputy to tell her about his transfer to the police station and she would have warned that the detention was not in accordance with the law and that some illegitimate pressure had occurred in the police procedure. In this context, Orsini would have called General Soza, because “there would have been a violation of the rights of Jorge Valdivia.” Upon learning of Orsini’s efforts, the deputy defended her actions, stating that “anyone has the right to file a complaint” and said that she had self-reported to the Prosecutor’s Office in order for justice to confirm that there was no act of corruption.
The senator and president of Revolución Democrática, Juan Ignacio Latorre, declared that the party’s principles of probity and transparency “will always guide our actions and, in this sense, we appreciate that the deputy herself denounces herself to the Public Ministry and that today the investigation is in the hands of that body to clarify whether there was a mistake here, an irregularity, an eventual crime, or not”. In addition, he added that the last word is in the hands of the Public Ministry: “We are going to respect and support that the deputy can make all the information available. I believe that this case has nothing to do with the eventual change of cabinet,” he pointed out. yesterday to The counter.
The DR helmsman has also been the protagonist of the problems that this group has had in the Government, such as when –in an interview with El Mercurio in October last year– he sent the leadership of Democratic Socialism to say that they are former Concertación, the following: “Do not come to say how to manage a coalition, at the time (in the Concertación) they also had crises.”
The problems generated by Latorre’s words forced the spokes minister, Camila Vallejo (PC), to immediately declare that “no separate party governs, no separate coalition manages to govern, we need each other in our diversity and That is why it is so important for us to make this call from the Government for unity”.
After these statements and after a political committee that he attended, Senator Latorre came out to back down and accepted his mistake: “I welcome the call made by the spokesperson minister Camila Vallejo for the unity of the parties that support the Government. We need to build a new intergenerational synthesis.”
Another RD that is questioned in La Moneda is the director of the Communications Secretariat (Secom), Pablo Paredes, due to the communication management without results in the popularity of President Gabriel Boric and his difficulties in relating to the President’s press team.
This list of inconveniences and setbacks that the Democratic Revolution has generated for the Government is what makes the ruling party think that the Jackson community may not end up being favored in an eventual ministerial change.
And in the DR there is concern that these unforced errors could contribute to the weakening of the community at a time when the President’s party, Social Convergence (CS), only seems to be gaining ground and strengthening within the ruling party. In this sense, one of the worst scenarios that the collective can haveity is for the change to materialize Minister Jackson, because it would be the second time, in less than a year, that he has been removed from a ministry. Thus, the Democratic Revolution only has to look cautiously at the possibility of an eventual change of cabinet.
