Sabatini makes a point

Greg Weeks has been consistent (and consistently entertaining) in his coverage of the crisis in Honduras. Actually, it's probably too late to keep calling it a crisis. It is an ongoing shame on the OAS, Latin America, and the US.

One reason that it's a shame is that much of the debate has centred around the kind of double standards that Chris Sabatini outlines here.
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Bluerain

Cool!

Kudos to my alma mater for combining art and academia.
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Frei's New Constitution: Not Granola

The polls don't show it, but I still believe the odds are in Frei's favour to win the presidential election, although certainly in the run-off. If that materializes, then we need to have a serious discussion on Frei's serious constitutional proposals.

The MSM in Chile still deals with constitutional issues as some sort of left-wing fetish, akin to granola or Birkenstocks. But as anyone who has studied Chile just a little bit knows, there are some areas that need fixing. For me, the main point is not the electoral system per se, but representation as a whole: for minorities, for aboriginal groups, for anyone who is basically not part of the elite. This is the hardest thing to fix, because elite groups don't give up power easily. In this sense, the Oceanos Azules proposal is pretty remarkable, considering that the people who drew it up are -- let's face it -- pretty much part of the elite themselves.
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Why the brouhaha?

If anyone is still wondering why the bigwigs of Chile Transparente reacted so switftly, this week's Qué Pasa offers a pretty convincing clue. As Deep Throat said, follow the money.

Nasty

I don't know if it is my imagination, by the current presidential campaign seems to be nastier than previous ones. Since the issues are non-existent, whatever debate there is seems to quickly descend into personal attacks. Nothing shows this more clearly than the manufactured outrage surrounding Eduardo Frei's reference to a Transparency International report which names Piñera as a protagonist in some alleged insider trading involving LAN stocks. The media-led frenzy overshadowed any rational analysis of the debate itself, not to mention Piñera's behaviour which led to the accusations. In the long run this is going to frustrate the hell out of the Concertación, and their message will become increasingly desperate and nasty.

But it will be worse on the right. There are already some rumblings from the UDI on Piñera's performance. But are they really complaining about the debate, or is the problem more profound? If you look at Piñera's actual policy statements and positions, inasmuch as they exist, he does not sound all that different from Frei. His promises sound like more of the same, only more so. More jobs created, more police on the streets, more social protection. More, more, more. I guess that's how billionaires become billionaires. They always want more.

For the UDI and others on the right, this is probably insufficient. Where is the social agenda? Where are the rollbacks on social spending? Where is the end to legal troubles for former military officers? Besides a promise of tax cuts (which seems unlikely in a country with a ridicuously low tax burden), these things have not been mentioned becuase they're not there.

So the right is getting frustrated, not because they are afraid Piñera might lose (and well he might), but because they are afraid Piñera might win.

And then watch them get nasty.
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Debate?

Last night the four remaining presidential candidates held the first debate of the 2009 campaign.

The debate made clear one of the peculiarities of this campaign. All the candidates are fairly well known to voters. Piñera has been around the block several times, Frei has been either president or senator for fifteen years, Arrate has been minister of all sorts of things, and Enríquez-Ominami has had almost as much media exposure as Michael Jackson and Princess Di combined.

More than getting to know the candidates, then the debate was going to be about policy (yeah, right), or waiting for some sort of fireworks between the candidates. There was very little policy, and almsot not fireworks, except for a brief flare up when Frei questioned Piñera's business ethics, citing a Transparency International report that criticizes some of Piñera's recent activities. Piñera hit back with a sophisticated 'So's yo momma'.

With little movement, then, who won? Normally a boring debate with no knock-out blows would favour the front-runner, which in this case would be Piñera.

Yet I cannot help but think that Piñera is a terrible candidate. His gestures look odd on television, and as the evening wore on he looked increasingly dishelved. What he lacked in sartorial organization, though, he made up for in communicational organization. The guy knows how to stay on message. In fact, he stuck to pretty much the same talking points he has been delivering for about ten years.

Frei on the other hand was the most presidential in appearance, but has an odd and slightly incoherent communicational style. Some think this is a hinderance. I suspect the average voter kind of likes it. He talks like a Chilean. Badly.

The media today presented Arrate as the surprise success. They should not have been surprised. Arrate has always been smart, calm and coherent. Plus he has the luxury of not having to worry about the real consequences of his proposals or criticisms, so on many issues he was right on. Good message, well delivered. Have a nice retirement.

The disappointment was MEO. I couldn't understand a word he said. His brain works faster than mouth. And next to the others, especially Arrate, MEO looked and sounded like a child. I suspect that in a tougher debate format, or in the US, another candidate would have told him that he will make a great president when he grows up.

Lloyd Bentsen, where are you when we need you?

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Contemplating Duckness

In the last few weeks a feeling has set in that the Bachelet government is now, really and truly, winding down. I am not sure if it has reached lame duckhood (duckness?), but there is certainly a duckesque veil falling, like a closing curtain, on the fourth Concertación government.

Inevitably, with the onset of duckinization comes reflection, and the public opinion polls, which consistently give Michelle Bachelet stratospheric approval ratings, inspire analysis on what she did right, much more so than where she may have gone wrong, or at least fallen short.

In today's Mercurio Carlos Peña raises (as usual) an interesting and oxymoronic quality to the Bachelet government. Bachelet's natural inclination towards greater democratization was translated into gobierno ciudadano, and in order to offer some signals of gobierno ciudadano, Bachelet had to reduce the influence of the political parties. Yet in order to govern, to get things done, political parties remain important, so Bachelet required party elites to excercise a great deal of discipline, thereby strengthening, not weakening, the centralising, and ostensibly non-democratic, nature of the parties themselves. How ironic.