From La Tercera, Chile, October 15th, 2011

Hernán Büchi: "Estamos perdiendo la batalla de las ideas"

From Ambito Financiero

La Fundación Internacional para la Libertad, que preside Mario Vargas Llosa, emitió un comunicado con motivo del los ataques a la prensa en Ecuador

-Comunicado de Prensa-

Se establece un precedente nefasto contra la libertad de prensa en el Ecuador

La Fundación Internacional para la Libertad (FIL) manifiesta su más enérgica condenapor la actitud del Presidente Rafael Correa y la lamentable actuación del juez temporal Juan Paredes, quienes atentan contra la libertad de prensa en el Ecuador y han establecido un precedente nefasto de vulneración de las garantías ciudadanas para emitir opiniones.

Es inadmisible la sentenciade 3 años de prisión contra Carlos, César, Nicolás Pérez, directivos de El Universo, y el ex columnista Emilio Palacio, por el supuesto delito de injurias contra Rafael Correa, sobre todo por la forma en que el juez Paredesemitió la sentencia. En 33 horas éste tomó posesión del cargo, sustanció la audiencia de juzgamiento, estudió más de 5.000 hojas del expediente, escribió 156 carillas de la sentencia, notificó a las partes y se retiró del cargo.

El magistrado temporal además ordenó el pago de una indemnización total de cuarenta millones de dólares, que deberá recibir el presidente a título personal. De los cuales 10 millones es la sanción a pagar por la empresa El Universo,que se la acusa bajo el mismo delito que a las personas naturales, cuando el Código Penal ecuatoriano vigente establece que no se puede querellar a personas jurídicas.

La sentencia emitida por el magistrado violenta convenios internacionales a los que está suscrito el país, como la Convención Americana sobre Derechos Humanos en su artículo 13, además contraviene la Declaración de Principios sobre la Libertad de Expresión aprobada por la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos donde seseñala que: “La protección a la reputación debe estar garantizada solo a través de sanciones civiles, en los casos en que la persona ofendida sea un funcionario público o persona pública o particular que se haya involucrado voluntariamente en asuntos de interés público. Además, en estos casos, debe probarse que en la difusión de las noticias el comunicador tuvo intención de infligir daño o pleno conocimiento de que se estaban difundiendo noticias falsas o se condujo con manifiesta negligencia en la búsqueda de la verdad o falsedad de las mismas”.

Ante estas irregularidades, la FIL se suma a la franca lucha ciudadana por preservar las libertades fundamentales del individuo y rechazamos enérgicamente los ataques hacia los medios de comunicación privados. Este será uno de los temas importantes que se discutirá durante el seminario internacional que por conmemorar los 20 años de lucha por la libertad del IEEP se celebrara el 5 de agosto.

Consideramos que el verdadero propósito es acallar toda crítica y amedrentar mediante acciones judiciales penales a quienes tienen un pensamiento distinto de la posición presidencial. Nosotros defenderemos la capacidad que hasta hoy hemos tenido de emitir comentarios y opiniones, aunque no les agraden a quienes detentan el poder.

Recent Postings

More about corruption in Brazil (in Portuguese)

Posted at Estado de São Paulo newspaper on July 24th, 2011

link: http://www.estadao.com.br/estadaodehoje/20110724/not_imp749041,0.php

Gaudêncio Torquato - O Estado de S.Paulo

A corrupção no Brasil aumentou porque passou a ter mais controles ou passou a ter mais controles porque aumentou? A resposta não provoca tantas dúvidas quanto o teorema do biscoito encaixado naquele intrigante comercial de TV de meados dos anos 80: "Vende mais porque é fresquinho ou é fresquinho porque vende mais?". A profusão de casos de corrupção, que se espraiam pelos espaços midiáticos, não deixa dúvidas: para 64% dos brasileiros, a praga alargou-se. Se a questão é posta para autoridades, a resposta é outra: nunca a corrupção foi tão combatida como hoje e, graças aos mecanismos de controle, tem diminuído. Sua visibilidade é grande porque o momento é de muita transparência. Nenhum governo aceita a pecha de compactuar com as teias de corrupção que se formam nos porões da administração pública. A transparência e a faxina em frentes ministeriais, com o desligamento de pessoas envolvidas em denúncias de corrupção, nos moldes que a presidente Dilma Rousseff adota (já demitiu 16 do Ministério dos Transportes), ajudam o governo a caminhar na via da moralização, mas sugerem que a administração federal é como um imenso queijo suíço, exibindo buracos por todos os lados.

A observação aponta para a seguinte hipótese: os buracos escondem ilícitos em graus variados. Entendida como comportamento de autoridades que se desviam das normas a fim de servir a interesses particulares, a corrupção revela a existência de frágil institucionalização política. Demandas exógenas superpõem-se aos papéis institucionais, envolvendo, quase sempre, a troca de favor político por riqueza econômica. Mas há os que trocam dinheiro por poder político. Qualquer que seja o caso, vende-se algo público por um ganho particular. É evidente que tal moldura pode ser estreitada ou alargada nas carpintarias dos governos. Como é sabido, estes trabalham com uma das mãos no balcão da política. Governantes compõem as estruturas da máquina com quadros e perfis que lhes deram apoio e com eles chegaram ao poder. Aí se localiza o primeiro rolamento da engrenagem disfuncional. Parcela substantiva dos corpos funcionais age de acordo com interesses grupais (atendendo a demandas de partidos que integram) ou mesmo individuais. Vale lembrar que a política, de missão cívica, povoada por cidadãos escolhidos para representar a coletividade, se transformou em profissão. Como tal, arregimenta quadros atraídos pelo escopo da acumulação material.

O Estado moderno contribui, sim, para a expansão da corrupção, na esteira da criação de fontes de riqueza e poder, ascensão de grupos, surgimento de novas classes, estruturação de fontes de recursos e expansão de possibilidades. Os surtos de modernização social e econômica implicam mudanças profundas na vida política. Daí se inferir que a corrupção, aqui, na Europa ou nos EUA, era bem menor há um século. Os campos de ação eram menos elásticos. A instituição política tradicional, por sua vez, incorpora hoje outros valores. Tornou-se banalizada. A administração de coisas materiais assumiu o lugar de ideários. As doutrinas murcharam, as utopias feneceram. E assim os círculos dos negócios inundaram o universo político. Sob esse pano de fundo, a resposta à questão inicial não deixa dúvidas: a corrupção expande-se na razão direta da modernização do Estado. Interessante é observar que os sistemas de controle também se multiplicaram. Entre nós, os conjuntos formados para apurar e mapear desvios - Ministério Público, Tribunais de Contas da União e dos Estados, Advocacia-Geral da União (AGU), Controladoria-Geral da União, Polícia Federal, etc. - têm sido atentos e proativos. Dispomos também de um conjunto de agências reguladoras, cuja função precípua é estabelecer diretrizes para atuação dos núcleos que cuidam de serviços públicos essenciais. Não raro, porém, tais mecanismos são impregnados de molas politiqueiras (nomes indicados por partidos) que abrem os dutos da ilicitude. Aduz-se que, ao usar ferramentas tecnológicas nas planilhas dos contratos, corruptos e corruptores acabam saindo do foco das lupas e estendendo seu império em plena era da transparência.

Há outros fatores que incrementam a corrupção. A burocracia, por exemplo. Estudo da Fiesp apontou a carga burocrática como fator negativo para a competitividade nacional, calculando que gera um custo anual de R$ 46,3 bilhões. E, como se sabe, ela é jeitinho de espertos e oportunistas para engabelar não só os incautos, mas os precavidos. Como cobra de muitas cabeças, a corrupção reinventa-se, esconde-se, para reaparecer em locais inapropriados, como os sagrados espaços destinados aos serviços de populações carentes - hospitais, maternidades, escolas, creches, quadras esportivas - , ou na aquisição de produtos básicos (remédios, merenda escolar, cestas de alimentos). É vergonhosa a constatação da AGU de que 70% das verbas desviadas no País são das áreas de saúde e educação. A rapinagem chega às raias do absurdo. Aos desvios de verbas destinadas a crianças e doentes soma-se o roubo de recursos para as cidades devastadas por desastres naturais, como as da região de Teresópolis (RJ). As cenas de encostas, bairros, casas e ruas destruídas, arrematando depoimentos de que foram destinados milhões de reais que nunca chegaram àquele destino, coroam a imagem da corrupção desbragada que consome as energias nacionais.

Não por acaso o Brasil abriga, segundo pesquisa da Transparência Internacional, 26% do dinheiro movimentado pela corrupção no mundo. Mas a própria ONG reconhece que esse índice pode chegar aos 43%. Há quem calcule que o Produto Nacional Bruto da Corrupção alcance metade do nosso PIB, hoje em torno de R$ 3,67 trilhões. Difícil apurar a quantia exata. Mas tudo indica que o Brasil não faria feio num campeonato mundial de falcatruas.

JORNALISTA, É PROFESSOR TITULAR DA USP, CONSULTOR POLÍTICO E DE COMUNICAÇÃO

TWITTER: @GAUDTORQUATO

Maria Corina Machado is running for the Presidency

English Translation of Live Speech

SPEECH ANNOUNCING HER CANDIDACY

17 July 2011

María Corina Machado

My thanks to all of you. From the bottom of my heart, my thanks to all of

you for being here today, for your trust, for your kindness. To my children, to

my parents, to my sisters, to my friends, to my teachers, to those who are

here and to those of you who guide me from afar – to the outstanding team

that honors me by making me a part of them – to my fellow lawmakers, to

my Venezuelan brothers and sisters.

God has given us so much. Venezuela has received so many blessings: a

beautiful and fertile land with wealth beneath its soil and in its geography.

And its greatest strength resides in us, the people of Venezuela. We are

living the most important and decisive moment of our lives: now is the time

to change the course of history. To decide our future and that of our children

and grandchildren.

Society’s foundation, the family, where the individual is taught to be aware of

his or her individual rights and collective responsibilities, is being attacked

mercilessly everyday: in Venezuela there is hardly one family which hasn’t

suffered the pain of losing a loved one or of separation resulting from

someone fleeing the country, or the most incomprehensible: ideological

intolerance: siblings who have not spoken to each other for years, parents

and children who have not shared hugs for years, who do not get together

and who do not protect each other. The barriers resulting from

discrimination and people discrediting others have come between us,

weakening and dividing us.

Venezuela, our country is suffering profoundly. Today we are a nation

divided, confrontational, in ruins, humiliated. The destruction has become so

swift that we notice it from day to day. Institutions are crumbling: the courts

of law, the jails, the police forces...just as bridges are falling, highways are

sinking, homes are collapsing. But the most profound destruction, the most

severe, the most damaging is the moral destruction.

The moral destruction has forced righteous and decent people who abide by

the rules to live in fear, threatened; while those who break the law, the guilty

are even rewarded. This is a country where those who do not persecute

become the persecuted and those who are not red do not exist. Men and

women who have worked hard for many years watch their belongings being

snatched away, whether it be by common criminals or by tramps vested with

authority.

For this reason, today I affirm with full conviction that our essential problem

is a problem of values. Therein lies the reason for our drama as well as our

salvation: as individuals and all of us together as a nation.

We have learned that the values held by those who govern have a direct

impact on the way in which they wield power, and on us as a society. If

thieves govern, then we have a corrupt government. If they sow hate, then

we shall have a violent society, if they do not keep their word, then they will

make a mockery of the people.

Today, those who govern Venezuela are in communion with corruption,

authoritarianism, lies, exclusion, hatred. That is why we have a society that

rewards trickery and forgives abuses, where violence rules and only one

point of view is foisted upon us, and where the common denominator in all

our relations is distrust.

How did we get here? How did we, the brave people, the proud and the

noble, the decent and freedom‐loving get here?

These 200 years of struggle against despotism and the yoke of oppression

have also been years of great lessons.

These have been two hundred years of strong arm dictatorships and

militarism, of attempts at modernization and institutionalization, of

enthralling advances and vertiginous reversals, of great promises but greater

frustrations. But the country’s rising oil revenues and modernization did not

reach many. Many, very many Venezuelans felt excluded and cheated and

that is why our Venezuela of 12 years ago tried to cling foolishly to the offer

of a change and this led many to build up their hopes. But those who rose to

power in 1999 turned their victory into booty, hope into an instrument of

domination, enthusiasm into slavery.

What a tragedy! What a tragedy it is to think about what we could have

been, what we could have done during this decade! Today Venezuela would

have been in first place in Latin America in every way: in the sciences, in

sports, in the arts, in progress, in success, in highways, schools, parks and

museums, exporting Venezuelan products and technology to the far corners

of the world.

But we have lived the decade of deceit, the decade of disdain, the decade of

humiliation.

When a mother, when a Venezuelan mother, goes out before dawn to stand

in line at a government‐owned Mercal supermarket, and they stamp her arm

so she can stand in line to get in yet only finds empty shelves, she is being

humiliated.

When a public employee, when a state worker, is forced to bow his head and

dress in red, he is being humiliated.

When one of our country’s retirees, after having dedicated his life to serving

Venezuela, now has to beg in order to be paid what is rightfully his: his

benefits and his pensions, he is being humiliated.

When officers of the Armed Forces, well aware of their Constitutional

mandate, are forced to accept orders from the Cubans, they are being

humiliated.

Students, teachers and professors who gallantly claim their right to academic

freedom but have to leave it behind in their classrooms in order to reclaim it

out on the streets and are repressed by teargas and gunfire, they are being

humiliated.

Shopkeepers, businessmen, farmers and cattlemen, pursuant to a

presidential whim, find their doors being rapped upon as part of a plan to

snatch away from under them what they have earned from the sweat of their

brows, their blood, and their efforts, they are being humiliated.

We are a nation that is being humiliated...we are a nation that is being

humiliated, when 200 years after the declaration of independence an

attempt is being made to oppress us under the yoke of the Cubans and their

failed ideology.

This scenario affects us down to the last fiber of our body and our

conscience; this is the existential dilemma faced by us as Venezuelans today:

Must we accept to go on living while being trampled and humiliated? Or once

and for all will we firmly and steadfastly defend our dignity as individuals and

as a nation? It is a matter of dignity.

My fellow Venezuelans: when faced with this crude reality there is no other

option than to react. Ethically. Ethically, there is no room for indifference.

We must all take a stance, risk what needs to be risked and be bold.

And I have done so: I have faced my conscience and my spirit. I listened to

reasons and feelings and I made the decision: a rational and emotional

decision, but an essentially spiritual one. An existential decision. And that is

why, today, with humility and absolute conviction I accept the challenge of

becoming the first woman President of Venezuela.

If this regime wants the Venezuelan people down on their knees, humiliated

and with their hands stretched out, begging, then I want Venezuelans

standing tall because we live with dignity, without bowing our heads because

we are not afraid, and, yes, with our hands stretched out, but in order to

embrace each other and to help our brother or sister.

We already know. We already know what we DO NOT want for Venezuela.

We also know what we DO want, what we dream for and what we hope for,

passionately and desperately.

• We want to live in a country where people can get along together,

where we can live quietly and sleep peacefully, where our families

feel protected and safe;

• We want to live in a country where there are opportunities

for all, where young people do not want to leave the country

and where each and every one of those who have left will

return.

• We want to live in a Venezuela that overcomes its

challenges, where the pride in being a Venezuelan can be

fulfilled, a Venezuela where effort is rewarded, a Venezuela

where all this energy pent up over the years can overflow.

I am going to tell you how we can achieve this. Rest assured that this dream

is present with us now, within our grasp, and we will strive to fulfill that

dream.

For that we will need:

• A government that will govern for your children.

• A government that will tell the truth, no matter how blunt it may be,

• A government with clear rules, to be respected always...always.

It is clear that I am proposing a radical change in our way of life and in our

Model for Society. And this entails transforming three fundamental pillars.

1. We shall have a new Model for Social Inclusion.

My fellow Venezuelans, in order to be fully free, a person should not

have to go hungry or be homeless and lacking an education. And this

is the life millions of Venezuelans are leading each day. For eight

years I shared my life with the most excluded of the excluded , with

the most vulnerable of the vulnerable, children who had been

abandoned by their families, children who had committed felonies

and misdemeanors. The arrival of a young girl at the Fundación

Atenea shelter was a milestone in my life. She was eleven years old

and she arrived with burns all over her face and body. Her own

mother had burned her. She spent most of the time hiding in her

room and would not dare to come out. We gave her respect, we gave

her love. And today she is the proud mother of three children, whom

she defends as if she were a lioness and will not let anything or

anybody harm them.

I want to say to all mothers who, just as she, will do anything for their

children, to teenage mothers who are raising children when they

should be studying, to single mothers who have no home or job, I

want to tell you that under my Presidency, your children’s future will

not be jail or the streets.

I will see to it that the power of the Venezuelan State, that all the

weight of the Republic, will be exerted in such away that these

injustices will come to an end forever. And with the resources of the

State and the love of the families we are going to bring down the jails

and build schools and universities for all of Venezuela.

The family is the reservoir of values. The family is the primary source

for education and the inexhaustible storehouse of love. When faced

with a storm, the family becomes a safe haven. And at the center of

the family one finds the woman, the mother, the wife, the daughter.

As women, we know, more than anyone else, what is at stake at this

moment, and that is why we have been standing and are standing at

the forefront of these struggles, which include that primeval cry to

the Government that said “stay away from my children” as well as

these ten years of struggle against tyranny. Because, as you know,

liberty and justice, as well as Venezuela, also have a woman’s face.

It is time to understand that poverty is not just a matter of low

income: it is essentially a problem of a lack of opportunities and the

absence of the training necessary to seize these opportunities. Listen

well: Populism as a social policy that seeks to generate dependence

on the State, in other words, the Administration that happens to be in

power, is something we are going to combat, and not exactly with yet

more populism. Social investment must focus on the development of

human capabilities. Solidarity, love, protection and caring for the

weakest and the most excluded is neither the monopoly nor the

exclusive responsibility of the State. The corporations, the churches

the communities and we as citizens share the responsibility in

eradicating poverty and exclusion in Venezuela. And those of us who

have received the most are the ones who must give back the most.

2. We shall also have a New Model for Economic Development:

From being a State that owns everything to becoming a society where

society is the one to create wealth, to enjoy it, and the one to be the

owner. A society of property owners, of entrepreneurs. We are going

to favor and strengthen a thriving market economy that will stimulate

talent, effort, creativity, innovation, productivity and property. Once

and for all we are going to overcome the limitations posed by a

petroleum dependent rentier state and promote investments by

national and foreign investors for the production of all goods. The

extraordinary potential that Venezuela has for power generation will

serve as a gigantic lever allowing the oil industry to become the first

among many other productive and profitable sectors in Venezuela.

These investments are indispensible for creating employment, many

dignified and productive jobs, with the understanding, that the

interests of the entrepreneurs and of the workers are tied together.

There can be no strong and solid entrepreneurs if there are no happy

and fulfilled workers, and vice versa.

Under my government the rules of the game and the rights to

property will be respected and justice will be done for those who had

their shops, their farms and their companies snatched away from

them. Never again. Never again will the State steal property from a

citizen.

3. We shall also have a New Model for the State.

We are going to build a State at the service of the citizen and not one

that makes itself be served: a State where power is truly handed over

to the people. This requires setting into motion a thorough process of

decentralization, which will carry and respect the attributes and

competencies held by State and City Governments, but which will go

beyond and succeed in having state governments enjoy financial

autonomy. That is what one can truly call shared power.

As President I will accept being a public servant: the first in setting the

example and the first in rendering accounts. Thus, we will establish

the foundations for a new State‐Citizen relationship: dialogue and

respect.

Furthermore, we shall have a State that is opposed to using oil as a

weapon of blackmail. Our fellow Latin Americans can rest assured

that we will never use this resource for seeking adherents or

punishing differences. International solidarity, especially with our

fellow Latin Americans will have priority, but foremost and always we

will place the needs of the Venezuelan people first. We shall never,

never built a house in a foreign country while there is still a single

Venezuelan without a roof. We shall never, never again be a colony of

Cuba or of any other country.

We shall bring forth this wonderful transformation based on an essential

value which is trust. Today we as Venezuelans have nobody we can believe,

no one we can trust, no one to go to, to protect us, to shelter us, to rescue us

and to help us find the freedoms we never should have lost. And that is why

our essential challenge today is to build confidence: confidence in Venezuela,

confidence in its institutions, confidence in each other, confidence in

ourselves. And since confidence runs in both directions, I shall take the first

step.

• I want to say to you, the public employee, the government worker,

that I trust you, your vocation and your eagerness to serve Venezuela

and I promise you that in my Government you will have respect and

opportunities. I promise you that you will never be forced to dress in a

certain color or to hide your ideas and beliefs. However, the people of

Venezuela expect our public workers to work hard and responsibly

because that is what the country needs.

• I want to say to the members of the Armed Forces and to their families

that I know that despite efforts by the Government to subjugate the

Armed Forces and to steer them away from the Constitutional path,

there are soldiers and officers who are defending Venezuela’s dignity

and its Constitution. We shall work hard, very hard, so that the military

family will be loved and respected by those they represent, for their

love for Venezuela and their respect for the Constitution. We shall see

to it that serving the country through the ministry of arms becomes a

matter of pride.

• I want to speak to communicators, to journalists, to those who seek

the truth and are the voice of those being silenced. During my

Presidency you will have access to information in a transparent

manner and we shall debate ideas and proposals passionately and

with respect.

• I want to speak to those who are persecuted physically, morally and

spiritually; to the political prisoners and those who are exiled: your

pain and sacrifice is not in vain and I promise you that history will

recognize your contribution to our cause.

• Today I want to speak to the teachers, to the physicians, to the nurses,

to the police officers, to the judges. You have a sacred task before you

in this country and during my Presidency you will be recognized and

honored. I understand the anguish felt by healthcare workers today

and I promise you that you will never again have to live through the

pain and helplessness of not being able to save a human life because

there are no medications, because there is no equipment or because

there is a power outage at a Venezuelan hospital.

• I want to speak to the young people. To the youth! I want to speak to

the young people who have had the tranquility of childhood snatched

away from them by the violence and confrontation and have been

forced to mature at an early age. I promise you that Venezuela will

cease to be a country that must await its greatness sometime in the

distant future and will instead become a country enjoying an

extraordinary present.

• And today I want to talk to those who are living in fear today, afraid of

leaving your homes at dawn or returning late at night. Afraid that a

child may become ill because there no cure available for that child.

Afraid to share ideas with our neighbors. Afraid that what belongs to

you will be taken away. That is over. There will be no more fear in

Venezuela. Our children will not have to grow up in fear because we

as parents have the strength and have made the decision to eradicate

it from our hearts forever.

Venezuela stands united; united though ties of fellowship, united through

ties of solidarity, united through ties of hope. And in this unity lies our

strength.

As a person who trusts the Venezuelan people I know that I can rely on the

hard work of the people of the Andes, the clever astuteness of the llaneros of

the Plains, the vigor of the Orinoco, the nobility of the guaros of Trujillo, the

gallantry of the people of Carabobo, the joy of the people of the coast, the

pride of the people of Zulia and THIS IS HOW, THIS IS HOW I am going to say

it:

Let us follow the example that Caracas once gave, and because WE ARE A

MAJORITY:

Let us break down these chains! Let us break down these chains!

Break down the chains of fear!

Break down the chains of exclusion!

Venezuela, break down the chains of sadness!

Break down the chains of poverty!

Break down the chains of the mandatory chained simulcasts!

Venezuela, break down the chains of humiliation!

Down with the chains!

God bless all of you!

Carolina Barros' take on Chilean Cabinet changes

Felipe Kast, a talented casualty of the changes

• • • • 20/07/2011 | The Buenos Aires Herald

• • • Le plus ça change ..?

    • Piñera shuffles his Cabinet again, but it’s more of the same

    • By Carolina Barros

      • The opposition to Sebastián Piñera can claim that Chile’s ministerial changes are just the same as any Cabinet shuffles in the Venezuela of Hugo Chávez or the Argentina of Cristina Fernández de Kirchner — a merry-go-round in which the same old names go whirling to end up in a different portfolio. Even if the president across the Andes, under pressure from sliding opinion polls and student and miner strikers, has just kicked the revolving door and played musical chairs with four key staff members, it is the incorporation of two senators from the ultra-right UDI (Unión Demócrata Independiente) which warrants special attention — his cousin Andrés Chadwick as presidential chief-of-staff and Pablo Longueira as economy minister. And what has not changed is also worth a look — namely the non-exit of Interior Minister Rodrigo Hinzpeter, a head claimed vehemently by the UDI (the coalition partners of Piñera’s Renovación Nacional) which the President refused to surrender.“Circular ruins,” was the sardonic comment of a La Moneda spin doctor when asked by the Herald about the new Cabinet. “It’s still a crony Cabinet, “ he added.

• • But we should also conclude from these concentric circles that Sebastián Piñera has changed the tone of his administration via these comings and goings and shuffles — a tactical move of eight pieces to give a more political profile to his Cabinet. Not much remains of that dream team of super-efficient technocrats, brimming with post-graduate degrees from Britain and the United States, which swore into office in March, 2010. The Chilean President had to prop it up last Monday by stripping the Senate of two more members, adding to those taken early in the year — Andrés Allamand (RN) in Defence and Evelyn Mattei (UDI) for Labour.

  • • • This action in turn carried its reaction from the opposition — the Socialist deputy Osvaldo Andrade said that Piñera was taking a leaf out of Augusto Pinochet’s book (with the consensus of the UDI and RN ruling parties) by replacing in Congress the incoming senators with the outgoing ministers. Such reference to Pinochet is no coincidence. The two new senators, “Cousin” Chadwick as his official spokesman and political wheeler-dealer in Congress (this latter task was the main shortcoming of outgoing Ena von Bauer) and Longueira in Economy (an atypical UDI with a more populist rhetoric finding consensus among the poorest social strata) began their political careers in the days of the dictatorial general. Both were closely linked to the late senator Jaime Guzmán (in whose murder, according to the Chilean courts, participated Galvarino Sergio Apablaza Guerra, today a refugee in Argentina from where the CFK administration refuses to extradite him), which could perhaps mean a future headache for the Pink House here.

      • But the La Moneda source consulted by the Herald sought to be explicit: “Only President Piñera can move the pawn in the Apablaza chess game”.

      • Another of these concentric centres of this shuffle deserves a glance — the Darwinian movement whereby Piñera sought to preserve future presidential options with a view to the municipal elections of 2012 and the general elections in late 2013. One of them is the minister who shot to stardom with the rescue of the 33 miners trapped in Copiapó: Laurence Golborne. In the shuffle Piñera placed Golborne in Public Works, a launching-pad at a safe distance from the furnace of miner strikes and “eco-green” protests against the HidroAysen electricity project which dogged him until Monday.

      • Also preserved is Defence Minister Allamand, a heavyweight RN factotum whom the President is at great pains to look after. Piñera has also turned Felipe Bulnes, the new Education Minister after having covered the Justice portfolio until last Sunday, into a presidential dark horse. As things now stand in Chile, the Education Ministry could be a tombstone or a trampoline — the main claim of thousands and thousands of students and teachers marching in the streets of Santiago and other main cities in recent days. Until now the responsibility had fallen (in the most literal sense of the phrase) on Joaquín Lavín, a repeat UDI presidential candidate whom Piñera had brought into his Cabinet with grave misgivings (and barely keeping him now in the obscure Mideplan, a sort of Strategic Planning ministry). With Bulnes in charge, they say in Santiago, the Education Ministry reforms will be better implemented. From La Moneda, of course.

      • On his side, Sebastián Piñera himself has said that the new appointments respond to “our institutions, our leaderships which are being put to the test by an increasingly empowered citizenry.” The power of the street and chilling opinion polls. What he did not explain is that this shuffle (in which two enter, two leave and six are recycled) is, in the words of Chilean political scientist José Viacava, a tactical manoeuvre rather than any surrender of power. Piñera’s alter ego Rodrigo Hinzpeter stays in the Interior portfolio and, with his immovable presence, what both friends and foes call a tight grip on power (Piñera likes governing without full Cabinet meetings, preferring to huddle with his ministers on a one-on-one basis). That is why the Republic across the Andes continues to be run according to the style (and whims) of a CEO.

Carolina Barros