Chile: success and discontent
LONDON - Let's play a political guessing game. First: Since 1990, which developing country has consolidated a flourishing liberal democracy, with free elections and a free press; nearly tripled real per capita income; significantly reduced its Gini coefficient (a measure of income inequality); and rapidly climbed the United Nations Human Development Index, so that it is now classified as having very high human development?
Here's the second riddle: Which developing country experienced massive protests and riots in 2019; suffers from a severe lack of trust in its institutions; just elected a Communist Party activist as the standard-bearer for the center-left governing coalition; and, if the polls are correct, is likely to elect a far-right Trump-mimicking president in the elections at the end of the year?
If you answered Chile to both riddles, you got it right. The country is successful, but its citizens are dissatisfied. Its democracy is the envy of Latin America, but Chileans aren't particularly proud of it. The volatile mix of fame and fury observed in the country holds lessons that are relevant far beyond its borders.
The center-left primaries, held on June 29, illustrate the stakes. The initial favorite was Carolina Tohá, a capable and experienced social democrat who has served as a congresswoman, mayor of Santiago, Chile's capital, and, until recently, Minister of the Interior in the government of President Gabriel Boric. One of her competitors was Gonzalo Winter, a hipster with a thick mustache who, like Boric, went from student activist to national leader in just a few years.
Ultimately, neither of these two candidates managed to win over voters, who voted en masse for the charismatic Jeanette Jara, former Minister of Labor and communist activist.
The Chilean Communist Party is not just any left-wing party. Almost half a century ago, when the center-left defeated dictator Augusto Pinochet in a plebiscite, the communists refused to participate, arguing that the only way to overthrow the regime was by force. In late 2019, when nearly all political parties signed a constitutional reform pact to end street protests, the Communist Party stood aside once again. It has sided with Vladimir Putin in Russia's war against Ukraine and praised Cuba and Venezuela for developing supposedly novel forms of democracy.
It's no exaggeration to say that the Chilean Communist Party is Stalinist. Yet, 60% of primary voters preferred its candidate.
Things aren't much different on the other side of the political spectrum. Center-right candidate Evelyn Matthei, who, like Tohá, has served as a congresswoman, mayor, and minister, is rapidly sinking in the polls. José Antonio Kast, from the far right, is rapidly rising. Unlike Donald Trump, Kast speaks softly and measuredly, but, like Trump, he advocates a populist, anti-immigrant, and anti-woke agenda.
What ails Chileans? Why do they vote for populists? Conventional wisdom suggests the cause is crime and immigration. The foreign-born population has increased to nearly one in ten, a change that has predictably brought a strong political backlash. Furthermore, violent crime, often perpetrated by Venezuelan gang members, has been on the rise.
But this hypothesis doesn't explain everything that needs to be explained. Compared to most Latin American cities, and even some in developed countries, Chilean cities remain safe. Furthermore, dissatisfaction with politics and politicians was on the rise long before the wave of legal and illegal immigration that occurred in the last decade.
When asked what ails Chileans, the other conventional answer is declining growth. The Chilean economy, once the marvel of Latin America, has barely expanded in recent years. The investment boom of the 1990s and early 2000s petered out long ago.
But, once again, slower growth is not enough as an explanation. Chile has not suffered the economic instability of other countries in the region; real wages have continued to rise (albeit more slowly than in previous decades), and domestic consumption has also increased.
The truth about what ails Chileans is deeper and more elusive. The first component is anti-elitism. Anything that smacks of the establishment, whether in politics or business, is automatically subject to suspicion. A key attraction of Jeanette Jara is her grassroots roots, which make it abundantly clear that she does not belong to the traditional political class.
Populism, whether left-wing or right-wing, is a form of identity politics: it's always about us versus them. Chile is no exception. Tribal politics has turned a few citizens into angry, social media celebrities, while the rest of the population, unable to bear the noise and vitriol, has lost interest.
The rules of the political game are also partly to blame for the disenchantment with politics. Chile combines a US-style presidential regime with a European-style proportional electoral system. The result is that presidents rarely have a majority in Congress, so they cannot deliver through legislative means what they promised in their campaigns. It's no wonder, then, that citizens increasingly believe that politicians are liars: a lot of talk and no action.
Anti-elitism, tribal politics, and the freezing of democracy help explain the recent rise of populism and polarization in Chile. But similar trends are also observed in other Latin American countries, in North America, Europe, and parts of Asia. We must resist the temptation to identify only local causes for what turns out to be a global phenomenon.
Tolstoy is wrong at the beginning of Anna Karenina: unhappy families can be unhappy in very similar ways. The same goes for unhappy countries.
Discontent is political and, therefore, demands political solutions. We must ignore the technocratic illusion that promises that if we increase growth a little and reduce inequality a bit, everything will be fine. As Chile demonstrates, prosperity can increase in a nation at the same time as irritation increases. To reverse this worrying trend, Chile will need far more visionary leadership than Jeanette Jara or José Antonio Kast can provide.
Translation: Ana María Velasco
The author
Andrés Velasco, former Minister of Finance of Chile, is Dean of the School of Public Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2025
Eleconomista
