Poverty in Chile reached a historic low. Income poverty was 6.5% in 2022, down from 10.5% in 2020. It is the largest drop in available data in the Encuesta de Caracterización Socioeconómica Nacional (Casen), carried out every two or three years by the Ministry of Social Development and Family with the University of Chile.
The improvement can be chalked up to a number of government efforts, including an increase in minimum wage, pandemic subsidies to poor families, the universal pension scheme and guaranteed minimum wage, according to Minister Giorgio Jackson. He also emphasized the role of economic growth, related to government policies encouraging job creation. (El País, El Mostrador, Universidad de Chile, La Tercera)
Boric announces Fiscal Pact
Chilean President Gabriel Boric presented a new “fiscal pact” last week — a series of measures aimed at raising $8 billion to finance social programs, and to modernize the country’s tax system. The proposal follows the defeat of the Boric administration’s tax reform in Congress earlier this year.
In general terms, the proposal includes six pillars: principles for a modern tax system; public spending priorities; modernization of the State; boost to growth; tax measures; and monitoring and evaluation of public policies. (El País)
The “fiscal pact” includes two legislative proposals aimed at combating evasion and avoidance: One bill aims to raise 1.5% of GDP by improving tax compliance by modernizing tax collection, fighting tax evasion and reducing the amount of informal, untaxed work. The other will reform income tax on individuals and companies, raising taxes on high-income earners, reports Reuters.
The announcement also includes a series of measures — including state reform and incentives for investment, developed in consultations with the private sector and aimed at pushing economic growth and the energy transition, reports El País.
Boric creates Probity Commission
Boric took a tough stance against corruption, in the midst of an ongoing series of scandals involving disbursements of funds to organizations of civil society with links to government officials, which could present a significant obstacle to his governing agenda.
In July Boric announced a commission of experts for probity, to be chaired by María Jaraquemada, executive director of Chile Transparencia. Boric promised that nobody associated with wrongdoing will be shielded. (Radio U)
The five experts of the commission have 45 days to recommend measures to improve the relationship between civil society organizations and the government, reports El País. The focus is concrete measures to strengthen transparency, accountability, and effectivity in joint actions between civil society and the government.
“This is not a commission for the photo. This is not a commission whose report and recommendations that are delivered to us in 45 more days are going to remain stored in a drawer collecting dust. What interests us personally, and as a government, is to implement the recommendations,” said Boric.
Constitution News
Chile’s Constitutional Council, dominated by right-wing politicians, submitted more than 1,000 amendments to the preliminary Constitution draft prepared by a Commission of Experts. The modifications focus on a slew of topics including abortion, crime, corruption and even cutting the number of lawmakers, reports Bloomberg.
Rumbo Colectivo points out several “red flags,” in which amendments stray from the “Transversal Constitution” promised by the Constitutional Council:
Amendment 117/2: prioritizes the supposed personal choice of health establishment, depending on personal finances, before ensuring the obligation of the state to guarantee access to health, as established by the draft Constitution written by the Commission of Experts.
Amendment 214/2: The right seeks to constitutionalize the AFP model of healthcare under the guise of “freedom of choice of the institution that administers each person’s retirement savings,” a move that impedes a mixed system that prioritizes solidarity.
Amendment 132/2: The right proposes transferring all responsibility for education to the family, displacing the state obligation to strengthen education at all levels, established by the draft Constitution.
In Chile abortions are only allowed in cases of rape, when the mother’s life is in danger or when the fetus is not expected to survive after birth. Now members of the far-right Partido Repúblicano say they want to strengthen the protections for the “life of the unborn,” reports El País.
In an open letter, more than 200 organizations described as unacceptable that the party seeks to impose measures that violate the fundamental rights of women, girls and pregnant women, noting the significance of the 50th anniversary of the coup d’état against Salvador Allende. (Prensa Latina)
More Chile News
The government created Advisory Commission against Disinformation, which will advise government officials on the global phenomenon of disinformation and its manifestation at the local level in Chile — the commission will prepare two reports within a year. (Ministerio Secretaría General de Gobierno)
A Center for Strategic International Studies report highlights the role of misinformation in Chile’s rejection of a new constitution in a referendum last year:
“As the referendum approached, misinformation soared across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and WhatsApp claiming falsely that the new constitution would ban private property, allow abortions in the ninth month of pregnancy, remove national symbols, and allow prisoners and migrants to vote. While broader social forces ultimately brought about the new constitution's defeat at the polls, misinformation likely contributed to a souring of public opinion, with 62 percent of Chileans voting to reject the new constitution.”
And a new series of reports by the Centro Latinoamericano de Investigación Periodística traces the website that started a viral lie claiming the country’s 2022 draft constitution would end private homeownership — the “the broader flood of fake news surrounding the politically progressive draft constitution contributed to it being rejected in a nationwide referendum in September 2022,” reports the Latin America Brief.
Sept. 11
The Santiago Boys, a new, nine-part podcast series, written, researched and presented by the technology writer Evgeny Morozov, delves into the story of the Chilean Allende government’s Cybersyn Project, a futuristic plan for a modern socialist economy. (Guardian)
A newly declassified transcript of a conversation between Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger captures the moment the national security advisor told the President that the CIA-backed plot to block Socialist president-elect Salvador Allende from being inaugurated—an operation ordered by Nixon five weeks earlier—had not succeeded. It is included in Pinochet Desclasificado: Los Archivos Secretos de Estados Unidos Sobre Chile, a revised Chilean edition of National Security Archive Peter Kornbluh’s book.
The book also reveals new U.S. records on the role of Chilean media mogul Agustín Edwards in assisting the initial CIA coup plotting in the days following Salvador Allende’s dramatic election in September 1970. Internal White House scheduling records obtained by Kornbluh provide concrete proof of a secret, September 15, 1970, meeting between Edwards and President Nixon in the Oval Office — only six hours later, Nixon called Kissinger, Mitchell and CIA director Richard Helms into the Oval Office and ordered Helms to come up with a ”gameplan” within 48 hours to instigate a coup that would prevent Allende’s inauguration.(National Security Archive)
“Chile is one of the most infamous CIA covert operations, and one where you have an explicit link to the president of the United States ordering that you overthrow a democratically elected government. These documents remind us of the malevolence of US foreign policy in Chile,” Kornbluh told the Guardian.
Chile and the World
South American countries have largely avoided picking sides in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, reports the New York Times. ”Longstanding views that a multipolar, less-Western global order is in their best interests have prompted governments to oppose the fighting but reject attempts to isolate Russia diplomatically, impose economic sanctions or supply weapons to Ukraine.”
Chilean President Gabriel Boric is an exception, he has vocally condemned Russian aggression — his stance responds reputational, material and sovereignty concerns, writes Daniela Sepulveda in El País.
Chile’s Boric administration recently announced its commitment to a “feminist foreign policy,” which it described as the first of its kind in South America — among other things, it means applying a gender lens to the country’s international agreements and treaties — everything from trade agreements to climate, Gloria de la Fuente, an undersecretary at Chile’s foreign ministry told Americas Quarterly.
U.S. lawmaker Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and a group of fellow progressive Democrats are heading to South America to meet with officials and civil society groups in the region’s three largest leftist-ruled democracies: Brazil, Chile and Colombia. The trip is a challenge to the Biden administration’s foreign policy in the region, reports the Los Angeles Times.
Lithium
“Chile’s new approach to lithium, one that tips the balance away from private companies and toward government control, is of keen global interest,” reports Bloomberg. The Boric administration “wants the state to take a controlling stake in operations considered strategically significant, with twin goals of making lithium production more sustainable and generating more money for the country.” Though Boric wants to create a national lithium company, this does not mean immediate nationalization of existing private ventures.
The Boric administration’s progressive lithium mining plan — including state control of the industry, environmentally friendly technology, and dialogue with Indigenous communities — is having trouble convincing skeptical local communities, reports Reuters.