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It was a week of high tension for La Moneda and it ended with a negative balance, due to the number of open flanks that the truckers’ strike generated for the Government. The seven days that the mobilization lasted revealed the weakness of the authority -which did not come to pass due to the lack of respect for the curfew, the blocking of roads and the shortage of supplies in several regions-, as well as the government’s double standard for driving. the demonstrations and having mortgaged, just a month after his debut, the political capital of the Minister of the Interior, Víctor Pérez, whom from his own ranks they accused of not having yet shaken his parliamentary suit and of having given wrong signals regarding his responsibility in charge of the country’s public security.
The “soft hand” that the Government had with the truckers was clearly and publicly criticized, despite the fact that every day, without exception, they violated the law. From this, what caused the most annoyance in some sectors of Chile Vamos was that this strategy was applied with a union that had no shame to exert a high degree of pressure and that put the citizenry as a scapegoat to achieve its objectives, threatening and causing shortages in different territories in the south of the country, economic losses with the closure, mainly, of the Port of San Antonio, and problems for the transfer of patients, as accused by the authorities of the Ministry of Health.
In the ruling party there are questions because, they explained, this whole scenario once again revealed the political weakness in which President Sebastián Piñera finds himself, who according to the latest Criteria survey has citizen support of only 15%. In La Moneda they did not like these criticisms, mainly because it was from Chile Vamos that the Government was asked to “not criminalize” the mobilization, precisely, turning a blind eye to the application of the State Security Law, as it happened.
You did not have to be an expert, they pointed out from National Renovation, to realize the differentiated treatment that La Moneda decided to implement with unemployed truckers. On August 29, a demonstration in the so-called Plaza de la Dignidad was quickly suppressed with wagon and gas launchers and ended with 21 detainees, while no truck driver was arrested for breaking the curfew. And there are countless images of police officers looking undaunted as normal traffic was prevented by the different trucks that moved their cargo by steps where the CNTC was installed; or that they only observed, without any action whatsoever, those who were deployed in the middle of the road after 11 pm, a time set throughout the country to start the curfew.
The executive director of the Institute for Society Studies (IES), Claudio Alvarado, pointed out that “I would say that what happened in this case confirms that we have a political problem that is observed on both sides of the spectrum and that it consists of validating the means of the protests by the mere fact of agreeing on the substantive demands, even when it is about illegal means ”. He added that “the Government should have been more firm, as it has been on other occasions in the face of other mobilizations, but the left that today cried out to heaven for public order should wonder why it acts like this today and has not done so many times. previous ”.
In the same vein, criticisms emerged from Chile Vamos. The RN deputy and member of the House Security Commission, Gonzalo Fuenzalida, said that “the demands are legitimate and must be solved, but the Government has to always apply the law, if not, we are opening the door so that in future strikes or violent actions the government is confronted with why it invokes the rule of law, if in other circumstances it has not done so (…). Public order cannot have a double reading. In this case, the Government has applied the rule of law differently in other cases ”.
The consequences that it brings are complex for La Moneda, since from now on it will have to justify its actions if it represses a demonstration in the streets, even more so taking into account that the plebiscite of October 25 is approaching and the spirits are inevitably exacerbated. A flank that can hardly be closed, they pointed out in the ruling party, because public order has been one of the weakest edges of the current administration and one of the great reasons for the disaffection of its own voters.
Another of the secondary effects that have been verified is related to the suspicions that were raised and installed in Congress, about the action that La Moneda had in the face of undue pressure from truckers, who demanded the approval of a package of 13 bills . The multiple interpretations occurred after Palacio chose – instead of having applied “common sense” to put limits on a pressure of these characteristics – to try to join forces to try to comply with the demands of the union, which coincidentally included the same package of laws that the Executive has tried to pass on security. A point that has been categorically discarded in the Government, but that has not prevented the feeling of a maneuver under the table from remaining in the environment.
In Chile Vamos these days, several have complained and have affirmed that “no one knows who has authority in the country,” because those who publicly threatened the President of the Republic himself, for seven days did what they wanted and got away with it. The suspension of the mobilization, they added in the ruling party, had a threatening tone, for which it left a bitter drink in several, because they considered that too much was given to a group that unduly pressured the Government authorities, setting a “terrible precedent ”.
In sectors of the ruling party, they agreed with what was said by the PPD senator, Felipe Harboe: “The fact that the Government has committed, with resources from all Chileans, to finance the trucks that burn them but, in turn, also pay them the Loss of earnings to truck owners and the difference in salary to truckers, between unemployment insurance and what is established in the contract, seems to me to be a privilege that no other worker in Chile has (…). It is easy to reach agreements like this, but it is not what Chile needs. What is required here is fairness and proportionality in the way of reaching agreements and not by way of blackmail and taking roads, as it was on this occasion ”.
For the academic from the University of Talca, Mauricio Morales, with this episode “the Government only reaps costs. What will remain as a memory of this strike is more the government’s obsequiousness towards truckers than its negotiating capacity. Historically, truckers do not they have shown democratic credentials. This time they showed that their lobbying capacity was stronger than the government’s negotiating spirit. “
Test not passed
The four decades of parliamentary career as a deputy and senator for the Bío Bío Region, added to his time as mayor of Los Angeles in dictatorship, generated an undeniable closeness of the now Minister of the Interior, Víctor Pérez (UDI), with the owners’ union trucks in question, to which is added that officials from his portfolio in the recent past worked for the same mobilized leaders. This closeness would have led Pérez to make mistakes and not give the political breadth in his first litmus test since he arrived in La Moneda on July 28.
Sources from the ruling party, as well as from the government itself, indicated that the minister had relied more than necessary in his proximity to the truckers’ union to unblock the conflict or, at least, to keep it at bay, which in practice it didn’t happen. The internal conclusion in government sectors is that the margin of maneuver that Pérez gave to the protesters exceeded the limits of his responsibilities as in charge of the country’s security.
And it is that, as the Minister of the Interior himself spoke publicly of “partial blockades” or only a potential shortage, while the reality was different, that was understood by the truckers as “wide sleeve”, because even the times in which I speak of applying the State Security Law, Pérez always contextualized and endorsed the demands of the National Confederation of Land Freight Transportation (CNTC), thereby weakening his own authority.
In the ruling party, he was not convinced that Minister Pérez left in the hands of his closest advisers, former deputies Giovanni Calderón and Gonzalo Arenas, such a relevant and national negotiation. A bet that was not only questioned from the ruling party, but also from the truckers themselves, for whom the only valid interlocutor was the head of the Interior.
The mismanagement of the holder of the Interior portfolio, earned him the announcement of a constitutional accusation against him and, incidentally, the end of the honeymoon for his debut in office. The authority of Víctor Pérez was weakened and, when the criticism has not yet subsided, he took another false step with the public defense of the innocence of his friend Pablo Longueira (UDI), accused of bribery in the framework of the SQM case. and that he is awaiting the respective oral trial: “I am sure he is absolutely innocent,” he said, words that – they stressed in the ruling party – “do not correspond” to his current role.
For the political analyst Tomás Duval, the Minister of the Interior wanted to avoid “the confrontation with the union and then resorted to the support of the collective cabinet and involved the Government directly in the final idea of lowering the unemployment as soon as possible. Pérez sorted with degrees of ability, but its probable haste may show that it complicates conflicts and does not adequately clarify that they are part of politics. However, it passed a test with the right, but it opens small degrees of unknowns to the future “.
Mauricio Morales added that, by kicking the board and blocking roads, the truckers “placed themselves outside the rule of law. They did so with confidence and assurance that they would not be exposed to the imposition of the legitimate force of the State, which gave them freedom of maneuver. Additionally, they knew that, in practice, they generated sympathy in the Government and the Minister of the Interior, who was willing to even face a constitutional accusation instead of enforcing the rule of law. This puts the political force in check. of Pérez, who arrived promising order in La Araucanía, but who reaped roadblocks, acceding to the blackmail of the truckers ”.
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