The left wins in Chile

Chileans went to the polls for the second round of presidential elections today, and elected left-wing former student leader Gabriel Boric. Which is great news, not only for the obvious reasons, but also because his opponent (and front-runner after the first round last month) was José Antonio Kast, a homophobic racist who supports the Pinochet dictatorship and whose father was an actual Nazi. If he'd won, it would likely have turned back the clock on the last decade of social and democratic progress (not to mention potentially have messed with the ongoing process of reforming their Pinochet-era constitution to be more democratic). With Boric's election, Chile seems to have dodged that bullet.

Equality comes to Chile

Chile's legislature has voted overwhelmingly for equal marriage:

Lawmakers in Chile on Tuesday legalized same-sex marriage, a landmark victory for gay rights activists that underscores how profoundly the country’s politics and society have shifted in the past decade.

By overwhelming majorities in both chambers, lawmakers put the unions of same-sex couples on par with others, making Chile the 31st nation to allow gay marriage and taking a significant step toward consolidating it as the norm in Latin America.

Good. And on the latter front, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights rule in 2018 that countries must recognise same-sex marriage; hopefully the remaining countries will hurry up and implement it.

Change wins in Chile

This time last year, Chile was in rebellion against its government. Protests against a train fare increase turned into protests against inequality, and then, when the right-wing government deployed the military to crush them, into protests against the government and the dictator-imposed constitution. And the protestors won: half the cabinet was sacked, and the government was forced to concede a referendum on constitutional reform.

Yesterday, Chileans voted in that referendum. And they chose change:

Chile has voted overwhelmingly in favor of rewriting the country’s constitution to replace guiding principles imposed four decades ago under the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.

Jubilant pro-reform supporters took to the streets of the capital Santiago and other cities to celebrate on Sunday night after exit polls showed that 78.24% of people had voted to approve a rewrite, while 21.76% rejected the change.

Voters also elected for the new constitution to be entirely drafted by a popularly elected body – meaning no active lawmakers can be involved in the process.

Of course, they still need to elect the constitutional assembly, and then actually write a new draft, and there's a lot of ways that process could go wrong, a lot of chances for the rich to put their thumb on the scales and prevent this democratic demand from being realised. But if they do that too obviously, Chile will be right back where it was last year, only with less chance for a peaceful solution.

Climate Change: Chile going carbon neutral

New Zealand is currently in the process of enacting legislation to set us on a pathway to carbon neutrality (except for cows) by 2050. Meanwhile, Chile - not a country we think of as being especially rich - is going the whole way:

Chile vowed to go carbon neutral by 2050 on Tuesday, in a plan hailed by experts as one of the most ambitious yet for a coal-dependent economy.

The host of the next UN climate talks in December president Sebastian Piñera pledged to close eight of the country’s 28 coal-fired plants by 2024.

The move would slash the share of coal within the electricity grid from 40% to 20% in five years, with a view to phasing out the fuel completely by 2040.

Chilean farmers are going to be carbon neutral. So why shouldn't New Zealand ones be the same? What makes them deserving of special treatment, either with respect to other New Zealanders, or the rest of the world? The answer is "nothing": their special target is just a subsidy to a privileged parasitical minority who have lived off us for far too long already.

Progress in Chile

While Chile is still dragging its feet on marriage equality, it has just passed a law allowing civil unions:

Hundreds of same-sex couples in Chile will head to registry offices this week to celebrate civil unions, which will become legal for the first time in the country on Thursday.

Although the Catholic church is a powerful influence in the region, Latin America has been relatively quick to embrace the recognition of same-sex unions. Same-sex marriage has been legalized in recent years in Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and some parts of Mexico.

While its not full equality, its still a step forward. And hopefully, as in New Zealand, it will help lay the groundwork for full equality in the near future.

Justice for Chile

In September 1973 Chile's military overthrew its democratically elected government and imposed a 20-year junta. Later that month, a group of army officers toured the country by helicopter, murdering captured enemies of the new regime as they went. It became known as the "caravan of death", and at least 75 people were murdered. Today, 40 years after the event, those responsible were convicted of their crimes:

A judge in Chile has found eight former members of the military guilty of murdering political opponents during the rule of Gen Augusto Pinochet.

The accused were part of the Caravan of Death, a military operation thought to have killed almost 100 opponents of the 1973 military coup.

They were sentenced to between three and 15 years in jail for killing 14 people in the northern city of Antofagasta shortly after the coup.

And hopefully they'll be the first of many of the dictatorship's servants to face justice for their crimes. It has taken longer than it did in Argentina, and many of those responsible have already escaped through death, but it looks like there is finally going to be a reckoning in Chile, and justice for Pinochet's victims.

The right wins in Chile

Chileans went to the polls today for the second round of presidential elections, and for the first time since the restoration of democracy in 1990, elected a right-winger. Media and football billionaire Sebastián Piñera will become Chile's first democratically-elected right-wing leader for almost half a century.

While this looks to be a significant shift, its worth noting that (as here) the right only won after promising to continue the left's social policies. Unfortunately, with a bar on successive terms as President, the public has no effective way to hold Piñera to that promise - any electoral backlash will be inflicted on someone else. This seems to be an exceptionally poor incentive structure for a democracy.

Meanwhile, outgoing president Michelle Bachelet will leave office with a ridiculously high approval rating. She could almost certainly have another go in four years time if she wanted to - the question is whether she wants to, or whether a single term is enough.

Chile votes

Chileans went to the polls today in the first round of presidential elections, and seem to be on-course for a major change, with right-wing candidate Sebastián Piñera leading on 44% of the vote. That's not enough to avoid a runoff, but the fact that he is leading signifies a significant change in Chile, which has not elected a right-winger to the presidency since the return of democracy 20 years ago. In the last election, he got only 24.5%, so opinion has definitely shifted.

As for the man himself, he's a media and football billionaire who profited from Pinochet's privatisations and supported the dictatorship in the 80's. There's an obvious comparison to Italy's Berlusconi there, but he'd have to work hard to be that bad.

The runoff election will be on January 17th.

Meanwhile, the right seems to have done well in Parliamentary elections as well, with partial results indicating a bare majority in the Chamber of Deputies. Interestingly, those results also show it winning that majority with fewer votes than the opposition, thanks to Chile's unfair electoral system (d'Hondt within 2-seat districts). It clearly needs to be changed, but with the right in power, that won't be happening any time soon.

Pinochet escapes justice

Chile's former dictator Augusto Pinochet is dead. I can't say I'm unhappy about it. He was a torturer and a murderer, responsible for the disappearance, torture and murder of over 3,000 Chileans - including the father of Chile's current President. The only thing that annoys me is that he died before he could be convicted for his crimes.

Update: Forme British PM Margaret Thatcher is "greatly saddened". I guess that tells us everything we need to know about her.

Pinochet arrested again

In 1998, former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was placed under house arrest in London while facing extradition on torture charges. Now, it's happening in his own country. Pinochet has been charged with 36 counts of kidnapping, 23 counts of torture, and one of murder for the disappearance and torture of opponents of his regime at the Villa Grimaldi. Among the victims there were current Chilean President Michelle Bachelet and her mother.

Pinochet has been charged with human rights abuses before, and always found to be too ill to stand trial. Hopefully this time will be different. He is an old man, but I want to see him convicted and held to account for his crimes before he dies.