 Great. Welcome to what the F is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean. CodePink's weekly YouTube program of hot news out of the region. In partnership with Friends of Latin America, Massachusetts Peace Action and Task Force on the Americas, we broadcast every Wednesday at 4.30pm Pacific, 7.30pm Eastern on CodePink YouTube Live. Today is a special edition celebrating Chili's presidential elections on Sunday, December 19th. Our episode is entitled Neoliberalism Dies in Chili. On December 19, a left of Senator Millennial who rose to prominence during an anti-government protest in 2019, was elected Chili's next president after a bruising campaign against a free market firebrand likened to Donald Trump. With 56% of the votes, Gabriel Borek handily defeated by more than 10 points, lawmaker Jose Antonio Cast, who tried unsuccessfully to scare voters that his inexperienced opponent would become a puppet of his allies in Chili's Communist Party and upend the country's vaunted reputation as Latin America's neoliberal prototype. In a model of democratic civility that broke from the polarizing rhetoric of the campaign, Cast immediately connected, or excuse me, immediately conceded defeat. Meanwhile, outgoing president Sebastian Panera, a conservative billionaire, held a video conference with Borek to offer his government's full support during the three month transition. Among many things, Borek campaigned with the promise to fight climate change by blocking a proposed mining project in what is the world's largest copper producing nation. He also promised to end Chili's private pension system, the hallmark of the neoliberal economic model imposed by the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. He has said, we are a generation that emerged in public life demanding our rights be respected as rights and not treated like consumer goods or a business. We know there continues to be justice for the rich and none for the poor. And we no longer will permit that the poor keep paying the price of Chili's inequality. Joining us today to discuss this historic victory in Chile is our friend and guest Patricio Zamorano. Patricio is a political analyst and the director of the Council of Hemispheric Affairs coha coha. Patricio is a Chilean citizen living in the United States. He voted yesterday at the Chilean Embassy in Washington DC. And some of you may recognize him today. He has been our guest multiple times our Chilean expert and particularly joined us when we were talking about the national referendum to rewrite the Chilean Constitution. So welcome back, Patricio. I'm so happy for you and your fellow countryman. This is such an exciting day. Thank you so much. Well, next day of a very historic day yesterday was impressive because all of us were absolutely surprised because we didn't know what was going to happen because polls were absolutely wrong. But most polls predicted almost a mathematical tie between cast and borage. And at the end of the day, it was impressive. The huge advantage between 10 and almost 12 points that's the range that we're handling still with 99% of the counting done. So it was a big surprise. It was really, really a remarkable show of conviction of a big percentage of the population, more than 56% of the vote that elected Gabriel Boris as the new president of Chile. He is the youngest president ever. When he becomes the president on March next year, he will be 36. So he's the youngest president ever. A new generation and he represents a generation as you that grew up under this severe neoliberal project imposed on Chile in 1973. Why don't you share with our audience a little bit about that experience of growing up under such a severe system. Well, Boris is younger than me, but he was able to have some connection with the past, but not entirely. People like me, we were children during the dictatorship and of course it created a huge mark, a psychological mark, a political mark, an ideological mark in my generation. And Boris was raised during the 90s, as you explained, where all the neoliberal experiments were applied with certain levels of social democracy, basically a system that was controlled by the ghosts of the dictatorship for a long time. And we have to remember that the Constitution was still the Constitution of Augusto Pinochet approved in an illegal way under repression under coup d'etat under dictatorship in the early 80s and then Boris was a witness because he was part of the struggle as well. He was part of that social movement that actually was trying to solve especially the education crisis in Chile. So Boris was in the streets actually as a young student, a leader of the systems of public universities in Chile. So he knows what happened after the dictatorship. He could see the failure of the system. So that's why his plan to govern Chile is really progressive in so many aspects. That's why the election of yesterday or Sunday was extremely polarized because he represented an absolutely different view of in comparison to cast the extreme right-wing candidate that was actually representing inocentism again after so many decades of the end of the dictatorship. It's unbelievable how cast was very obvious that he represented that set of values. So definitely the election on Sunday was a confrontation of Chuchiles, totally different, totally contradictory. And in that sense, it's very refreshing that the population of the country selected the progressive views of Boris and all what he represents. It's really, I think the political and economic ramifications of his election, his campaign and ultimate election are fabulous. And I also love the fact that he's a whole new generation. Yeah, he's 35. I just, I love what that in itself represents. Yes, because we have to remember that he represents people who have some connection with the dictatorship, but also have a connection with the future. And I believe that's very healthy because he recognized the human cost that the dictatorship created. But he's able to separate from that generation in a healthy way because we have to remember that he's breaking up with the traditional political parties, including the center-left parties that negotiated with Pinochet. So I'm part of that generation as well as even though Gabriel is younger than me, I'm also part of the generation from the 90s who witnessed the negotiation. And that negotiation was disgusting for a lot of people like me and another younger ones because we didn't accept the compromise that the center-left parties did to warranted governance is what they said. But at the end of the day, what they did was to solidify a whole institutional framework that was extremely repressive based on private enterprise and applying the laws of the market to key elements of any society like health, health system, the pensions were privatized, the health system was privatized, the educational system was privatized and basically created a society based on caste, based on money, based on incomes. So you have great health, you have great pensions, and you have a great education if you have the incomes. So that's why Boris is product of that generation of people who found that negotiation, that compromise, absolutely unacceptable. And that process took 30 years. Finally, as you mentioned, we are writing a new constitution now. So Boris is part of the same movement. So it's going to be very interesting to see him as a president leading the way or empowering this new constitutional assembly that needs to write a new constitution for the country by 2022. So I think let's talk, let's explain to our audience a little bit about the constitution and why this is so important for a left of center president to be leading this way because so much of the privatization, the neoliberal model was enshrined in the constitution. Exactly, yeah. Yeah, I mean, Pinochet was very careful on creating a constitution that would validate his view of the economy, his view of the social framework of the country. So the constitution has, the 1980 constitution has a lot of elements that are like 100% authoritarian. It declared that the pension system could be privatized or open to private hands. It created a way to open health and education sectors to be handled in a private way. But it is there. It is there. All those markers that are extremely conservative, they are there. It also created a language that gave the armed forces of Chile a saying in the institutional framework of the country even giving them the right to intervene if the basis of the institutional framework of the country were to be affected. And in the language also identifying socialism or communism indirectly as something that wasn't going to be allowed in the country. It's really a very conservative text that is a miracle that have been, well, it's not a miracle. We know why it survived so long because of this compromise. This compromise I was talking about, it was one of the key elements. Some elements were reformed. That's totally true. Certain conditions were actually changed, but the core of the constitution was actually very strong still. So that's why it's very important to wipe out that part of heritage from the dictatorship. We need to really refund the country. The country needs to create a new contract between the state and citizens, a contract based on social justice, a contract based on solidarity. We need to eliminate any element related to the rules of the market, related to the health of Chileans, the education, pensions. Boric has a huge weight on his shoulders because he needs to deliver exactly that. And he's not going to do it alone. He has hundreds of deputies, 150 deputies who need to write this new constitution. They have nine months since July this year. If they have the need, they can expand it to one year. So by July, between April and July next year, that constitution should be done, completed. And then we need to have a new referendum to ask the population if they accept this new constitution. So that's approximately the big challenge that a borage is going to have. And if everything goes according to plan and according to the laws that created this new constitution, a borage will be the president who is going to sign it, which is very cool. It's like so exciting. I mean, it's so exciting that he's the one that will be in office to help guide it. And one of, as we mentioned before, it's just a new generational vision of the country of Chile's place in the hemisphere and the rest of the world, and his political and economic vision it's just really it. So, I feel almost guilty as it's so exciting for so many of us outside of Chile I can't even imagine what it's like for those of you who are Chile and it must just be almost almost unbelievable. It's a whole story that it was not possible just just two years ago we have to remember how fast this process has been. I think Chile has this interesting story things having the Salvador Agenda government being being destroyed in a huge surprise to the rest of the world like a democratic government trying to create this this socialist dream. Very similar to Europe actually nothing really very radical but but it was a attack viciously by by by the right wing sectors of the country and then 4050 years later to have now a new coalition of jungle generations with the support of the of the Communist Party, we have to remember that the Communist Party is part of the coalition that gave this new president to the country so it's really a failure and ideological failure of the dictatorship and all the supporters that is still cast had still 30% approximately of the vote, a like hardcore boat. We have to remember that he won the, the first round of these presidential elections. So we have a still between 2530% of the population who agrees with with finished values in some way and we need to recognize that it's part of the democracy is part of the views that every single country has a country, but a, but the fact that the Communist Party for example is part of the government now that is offering governance to the country a whole cycle of history after that thousands of leaders kill torture exile I mean it's very, it's very important morally that the Communist Party now is showing that it has the capacity to govern in peace. And hopefully, the United States and other powerful countries are not going to intervene with that and they're going to just let them engage to govern we really need that the country is is is in such a huge and I'm not sure if I can, I can explain this enough, but Chile right now is under a huge level of depression of social depression people are exhausted. The COVID-19 situation made things worse. We have to remember the social unrest came before COVID-19. It was extremely violent in the streets. The repression was awful people losing ice balls because of a rubber bullets used by the police. Women being raped dogs being used. I mean it was exactly like the dictatorship in terms of the streets. So it was a really, really hard thing to face. And then on top of that we have coded and on top of that we still have this neoliberal system that govern the health, the education and the pensions of every single Chilean. So the country is exhausted. So we really need to give Boris an opportunity here because we need to fix so many things at the same time in just four years. So this is, I'm not sure how far Boris is going to be able to go. We have to remember in Chile, we are not, we don't have any consecutive re-election. So that's a problem. I don't agree personally as a political science guy. I don't agree with it for years. I think it's too short, especially if the president is doing a great job. So well, in this case, those are the rules. So Boris will be able to govern just for four years. In four years he needs to progress so much. And then who knows who is going to be the next president, right? Well, that will be up to him and his coalition to help develop and mentor new leadership. But I didn't realize, I guess I didn't realize that it was one four-year term and cannot run for re-election. Wow. And I'm sure there's some historical reasons for that that are well-intentioned also, but in this case. He can be re-elected, but after a new period. So it's not consecutive, but after that he can apply again. Bachelet did it as well, right? Yes, that's true. I had forgotten that. So this is a real example of the need to have a good ground game, good social movement and community and labor organizing under the party to develop continuing leadership. Exactly. That's a really good example of why that's a movement building and the necessity for it. Sure, sure. I just want to comment also, Terry, because we need to understand the reality of things as well because Boris won. It's true. We have a new constitution that is being written by a large majority more than 70% of the deputies writing the constitution are center-left. So we have that cover in terms of the needs of very strong progressive reforms that the countries demanding. We have to remember that almost 80% of the population in a referendum said that they accepted they wanted a new constitution, almost 80%. So we're talking about a lot of right-wing people that also agree, because everybody agrees. So that said, we have to remember that Boris is going to face the work of president with no Congress. That's something that we need to add to the analysis because I have seen a lot of reactions, positive reaction, but we have to remember that he doesn't have control of Congress. The conservative forces in Chile, they still control approximately 50% of both cameras, of both houses, Senate and Camara de Diputados. So we have a problem there because Boris will have to negotiate. Even he has to negotiate with the center-left parties that were left outside this historic moment. They are supporting him still. I'm talking about the Socialist Party. I'm talking about the Christian Democrats, the PPDP, Partido por la Democracia and others. And they are saying that they're not going to be in the opposition, but that doesn't mean that they're going to set absolutely everything. Because the Communist Party and the Frente Amplio or all the ample front or the White Front, I'm not sure how you translate that, but the El Frente Amplio, which is one of the major components of Boris coalition, they don't have enough seats to do anything. So they really need the support of the whole center-left. And of course, the right-wing parties are going to make sure that Boris doesn't progress enough. So because they're going to protect their interests, they still own the country economically, they still own the country financially. So they're going to make sure that those big corporations, big interests are not touched. Yeah. We saw, well, we're facing something or witnessing something very similar with the outcome of the presidential elections in Honduras on November 28th as well. So many of us are so excited about Xiomara Castro's election and again by a huge percentage, but it's going to, her success is going to, like with Chile is going to depend on what sort of Congress is, you know, the composition of Congress and those elections aren't finalized yet in Honduras. So it's fascinating to me and we see the same thing in the United States too. There's one way that the citizenship votes for president and then often is another way that you vote more locally for your congressional representation and it's that clash often. It's fascinating to me that there's so much of a difference in Congress and Chile given how many people voted to rewrite the Constitution. It's really kind of a real mix of political contradictions right now, as you said. Yeah, because of the timing, yeah, because of the timing, they're not coordinated. So at some point, Bolshy may have a chance, but he will need to, even if he controls the center-left controls both cameras, still we have to remember that we have parties that were not part of the coalition that competed against him. We have to remember that carefully that he doesn't have automatically the vote of the parties that, why, because Boris itself, he criticizes of course the heritage of binationalism and all those countries, especially Renovation National and Union Democratica Independiente, both to right-wing parties, but he also criticized the center-left strongly for the reasons that I just explained, not only the fact that they compromised in an immoral way for so many years, but also the lack of capacity to connect with the needs of the people to defend the social agenda to somehow create the conditions for the whole huge social unrest that we have for the last couple of years, and also the cases of corruption. There's a lot of corruption involved, so that's a failure. And Boris was very clear during the campaign to actually target those sectors as well. So that's why it's very interesting the fact that he got so many votes. We have to remember also that he got more votes than any other president, more than 4.5 million votes is the biggest participation since the vote was declared voluntary, is the biggest participation ever also. So there's a lot of good things about this. People were really mobilized against the traditional political parties. All the parties that are part of the coalition are extremely young. The political party of Boris just was founded in 2019, Convergencia Social, just three years ago. I mean, it's unbelievable. It's because that shows you theory that Chileans were eager for changes. They were eager to try something else because I can tell you, as I said before, the level of social depression in the country, mentally, spiritually, it's just extremely deep. So that's why I think Boris, the fact that he's younger than 40 years old and all that represents fresh air, like a fresh air into the system. No, it's really, really, it's really exciting and it's exciting to, it really, to me, on a very personal level is very exciting to see, you know, a whole new generation and I think I would like to see that influence young people across the hemisphere. And for it to be an example for so many young people across the hemisphere. And let's, in our, in our final minutes, Patricio, let's talk about what yesterday's election results couldn't mean for the composition of the hemisphere of the Americas. Before we went, went live I shared with you my personal observation and I have shared this on other programs as well, especially having been Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Honduras, November for all that whole series of elections. There really is where I, I, I, I, I hesitate, hey, I hesitate to say it, but I so feel it that we're in this moment where the ship is like just starting to turn away from US led unilateralism and into creating a hemisphere that could quite possibly be multilateral. Sure, I mean, we have those, those signals, and I think it's just the failure of capitalism in its pure form, because we have to remember, we don't have to lie ourselves, it's not like the whole continent agrees with socialism in that sense. There is a core boat, people who actually have those values. But we also have a huge amount of population who are just pragmatic, and they really need to have a very quality of life period they really don't care if it's socialism or or or capitalism all these surveys. The continental ones they demonstrate that people are eager to have peace to just to raise their children to have a decent educational system to have a health system in basic needs. And those needs were really, really no well covered by by this new wave of conservative governments that actually replace the leadership in in some of the countries. In the case of Honduras, it was just a scandal how how this de facto president was able to govern for so many years based on fraud. That was even a different process we're not even talking about political needs, we were talking about legal issues. They are with this person who also was a one Orlando Nantes involved with with with illegal drugs trafficking and and all those scandals. So in in the case of Nicaragua, a huge support of continuation to the Sandinista movement in Venezuela with all the sanctions decoded in 1900. The situation we know that the situation in the country is extremely bad, and then still they still supported the government and then in Chile, a very neoliberal country. This this beauty of a model for so many people believing a or actually thinking that this mask was was real and then with this answer of the population supporting Boris is extremely clear that Chileans do not believe in neoliberalism in that sense, because the system itself has created a huge social mass for for for millions. So, a, a, a, a, a, I think it's impressive how code if has demonstrated to a load to millions of Latin America's the failure of capitalism I think the market, the market itself was was was crushed in a horrible way. So in that sense, in that sense, this pandemic show the failures that the governments were not able to handle that, because they are based on markets, they are based on rules of the market. So we just need a pandemic then and then this this market gets totally totally destroyed, and with that the, the life of millions of people so that's, that's a, that's a lesson I think that we have learned very, very, very closely. I would agree with that I really think that Latin American the Caribbean really saw, I think all of the Americas, I would argue the entire world, but the Americas in particular we saw those systems with privatized health care systems including the United States were completely active at responding to the pandemic for the vast majority of its citizens and those, those nations, even if they did not have, you know, economic, you know, large scale economic success, they were still able to respond on a state level for their citizens. And the other thing that became very apparent was that there's now almost a, aside from political and economic cooperation among nations in Latin America, there's also a realization to connect on a humanitarian level, because of the pandemic. And I think that's reshaping the Americas it was very clear that the global north, including the United States had no solutions for for our neighbors to the south, and that's really even among center to center right governments. There's this desire to create this need to create a multilateral system of engagement. I would say, though, we need to see how Boris is gonna react with Venezuela, for example, he doesn't belong to the Bolivarian circle in that sense. We know that he has a maybe a better, a better view about Cuba we need to see because there is a principle based on being against sanctions or embargo. I would wait it's true that the communist party is party coalition but it is not there's no doubt that we will have tensions there when the when the communist party that is Bolivarian is I'm sure that we will witness a tensions inside the government coalition about that so we need to see we need to wait what's going to be the the actual international practice of Boris when it comes to imperialism for example that that's a very good question isn't it's an open question I think we need to wait a little bit more. So I know people from from that sector, I know that we have this this contradiction that they have a very very very progressive policy when it comes to Cuba and the illegal aspects of the embargo for more than 50 years, etc, etc, but they don't have the same criteria for some reason for Venezuela, for example. So, I think we will see that contradiction in the next months, but at the same time, I believe that Boris, it will be very focused in domestic policy, I can see him extremely busy. He really has to reorganize complex systems. We, he needs to, and at the same time, trying not to create a worse situation because we need to remember still we have powerful interest in Chile. The pension system is extremely, extremely valuable for these big companies, they are making billions of dollars every single month out of the pensions of all, all Chileans, and he needs to touch that system in the best possible without being destroyed by this big corporation. The same thing with the health system, we have extremely powerful companies, because it is a business. So, and also he has to touch a lot of interest of the private sector in terms of universities. So it just a lot of things that he needs to focus on urgently on top of that he's dealing with a pandemic and on top of that he's dealing with a new constitution. So I would predict that Boris And goodness, he's young. He's young enough to have a lot of energy because this is going to be tough. This is going to be a tough thing. I think today, tomorrow, for the next week, he's going to be enjoying the honeymoon. But at some point, he will realize, okay, I need to deliver. I need to start working seriously on all these things. He has three months to form a new government to find new ministers of his cabinet. The discussions will be very intense because he has a broad coalition to integrate. So we will see, we will see who will be in charge of education ministry who will be in charge of the health ministry. The deputy of his campaign, she likely will be the minister of health. So we have key elements here, labor movement, who is going to be the one who is going to represent the new social contract between the state and the workers, the unions that were hit for so many decades, very similar than what we see in the US. Unions are, they're really fighting back to survive and to get stronger. We have this situation of immigration in Chile as well because Chile is a half for new immigrants. So there's so many things inside of the country domestically that I think the foreign policy will be really a secondary or third priority. There's no doubt about that. You know, the domestic success, you know, a successful domestic program will send a message to the rest of the hemisphere, right? It will ripple out, you know, beyond the borders. So Patricio, we all send you so much congratulations, best wishes, good will. And so excited for you and your countrymen and I hope you come back to give us some updates as we watch. Maybe perhaps once the new president is inaugurated and we can watch the evolution of Chile is going to be such a phenomenal project to support and watch. So I'm so happy for you and I'm so thankful you had time to talk with us today. I want to remind our audience that you've been watching what the F is going on in Latin America and the Caribbean code pinks weekly YouTube program of hot news out of the region, we broadcast every Wednesday at 430pm Pacific 730pm Eastern. Today's episode is a special edition celebrating Chile's presidential elections yesterday Sunday December 19. And also be sure to catch code pink radio which broadcasts on WBAI New York City WPFW Washington DC every Thursday morning 11am Eastern. So thank you Patricio. I'm so happy to have time for us today always a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you so much also Terry, it's been a pleasure.