Chile
The election is over, Piñera has won.
Will the political, economic, cultural, social, etc. situation change at all for the peoples of our country?
What was at stake in these elections was the fight between two neo-liberal sectors competing to decide who would administer the State and who would provide continuity to the political and economic measures based on the fascist Constitution of Pinochet that is currently in force.
The Governments of the Concertacion, as nobody denies, were extremely successful in administering the neo-liberal model.
They were applauded by the employers and the old right and by the agencies representing Imperialism (IMF, UN, BID, OAS, etc.).
The profits of the big capitalists set up in Chile have reached exorbitant levels, widening the chasm between rich and poor, so that the country has attained the sad record of being one of the nations with the greatest differences in income distribution in the world.
The concentration of economic power in a few hands, as a result of mergers, collusions and privatisation; the subjugation of the Chilean economy to the international division of labour, the productive structure of the country specialising in the export of raw materials and, in general, products with low value-added, formally expressed in the Free Trade Treaties, have undermined the economic capacity of the country, preventing the development of manufacturing industry and barely allowing the existence of some micro companies.
The loss of national sovereignty that this expresses, among other things, in treaties on mining and the property of the seas, treaties on the military and hemispheric security, the property of water resources, are part of the heritage that the New Right of the Concertacion is leaving the old right.
Labour legislation that allows precarious work, anti-union practices, low wages, the failure to fulfil and making a mockery of social laws, is the road already paved by the outgoing New Right of the Concertacion.
In regard to education, the General Law on Education (LGE) has been implemented, and the private, monopolist and for-profit character of education has deepened. The same thing has happened with the privatisation of health, public services, public housing, etc.
The denial of the national rights of the demands of the indigenous peoples, the criminalisation and repression of their struggles, the political and moral disintegration of the organisations of the workers and peoples in general, by means of co-optation, corruption and repression of the social and political organisations have been, among others, necessary conditions to make possible the continuous and profound application of the neo-liberal model with which the Concertacion has ruled the country for 20 years.
Finally, this is the country that the new right (Concertacion) is handing over to the old right (the Alliance).
Who is the Old Right? They are the ones who promoted, conceived and carried out, along with the armed forces and Imperialism, the Fascist Military Coup of 1973, they are the accomplices of torture, murder, disappearances, the exiling of hundreds and thousands of Chileans, the natural heirs of the dictatorship, under whose shadow they were formed, became part and enriched. They have co-governed together with the new right of the Concertacion, cohabiting in the Congress, the Supreme Court, the Central Bank, the Comptroller General of the Republic, in the Armed Forces and in the Court Constitutional.
By their class nature, past and present, and in the interests they represent, we can only expect more of the same, i.e. privatisation (CODELCO [National Copper Corporation], State Bank, ENAP [National Petroleum Corporation], etc.), more treaties of security and economics with the imperialists, a further loss of national sovereignty, greater flexibility of labour, in other words, a deepening of the ‘successes’ of the Concertacion government.
The unease with the old and new right by the peoples was expressed in abstentions, the blank vote and null vote; in the latter case it should be noted that this was a consciously political vote supported by progressive organisations, left-wing personalities and the Communist Party (Proletarian Action), P.C. (A.P.).
The Chilean Communist Party (Proletarian Action) P.C. (A.P.) calls for:
No trust in the demagogy and populism of Piñera and the new right clothed in the opposition that is trying to use the popular demands and struggles for their own interests as a neo-liberal group.
Intensifying the efforts to bring about a large movement for a Constituent Assembly with popular prominence, forming hundreds of committees for a Constituent Assembly and a new Constitution.
Forcefully pushing for our own alternative, not subjected to the capitalist blackmail and options imposed by the fascist and neo-liberal Constitution of 1980, advancing towards a sovereign, honourable, just, popular democratic and socialist Chile.
Santiago, January 17, 2010
Central Committee of the Chilean Communist Party (Proletarian Action), P.C. (A.P.)
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