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The Ministry of the Interior arrived on July 28 this year, after the departure of Gonzalo Blumel -one of those closest to President Sebastián Piñera in the Palace- and within the framework of a profound change of cabinet with which the President was betting on starting a “third half”, privileging party figures politicians.
The relationship with the ruling party, in fact, had been one of the issues that had weighed on Blumel’s management, and the President chose to install Pérez as chief of staff, with whom he did not have a close or personal relationship – rather, his name was a bet by the UDI leadership – but with a long political career: it was union deputy and senator for 30 years (since 1990) and mayor appointed by the dictatorship in Los Angeles (1981-1987).
During his long stay in Congress, he forged a reputation as a tough opponent of the Concertación and, due to his right-wing profile, he barely got to office, The opposition came out to install that a “Rejection Cabinet” was based in La Moneda. to a new Constitution.
The arrival was not easy: Truckers stoppage, divisions of its sector by the plebiscite, the situation of violence in The Araucanía, the fall of a young man – driven by a policeman – to the bed of the Mapocho river and even tensions that generated in the government its own defense on the constitutional accusation, marked the three months -98 days in total- that he was as the second man of La Moneda and that ended today, after he decided to resign from the position once This afternoon the Chamber of Deputies approved the libel against him by 80 votes to 74. With the above, Pérez had been suspended from his position, becoming the first chief of staff to go through this situation since the return to democracy.
It wasn’t the only stumbling block. In case of passing the fence of the Lower House, the accusation – in which he is accused of not having applied the law in the framework of the truckers’ strike; violate the right to equality before the law; and not to exercise hierarchical control over Carabineros- would later be seen by him Senate who – acting as a jury – would review the libel. Although the scenario there was uncertain, if it prospered, Pérez would be removed from the post of minister and would be disqualified from holding public office for five years.
The Pérez’s resignation was defined prior to the press release he gave from Congress after the accusation was approved, and through a dialogue with President Piñera. There the now former minister communicated his personal decision, which the President would have accepted, but not before trying to convince him otherwise. In that phone call, he told Piñera that he did not want to be an obstacle, something he later commented publicly.
“I just spoke with President Sebastián Piñera and I sent him my resignation from the post of Minister of the Interior, since I am not willing to damage the government through me. Here is an attack to obstruct the action of the government and, therefore, I do not want my person to be an obstacle. And I proposed to him the will to resign, even though he tried to persuade me, he accepted my arguments, because clearly we all fully understand that the purpose and objective here is not Víctor Pérez, but rather the government of President Piñera “-
Pérez added that “I am going to go to the Senate as a citizen without the President having obstacles in all that is that concurrence. For me it is impossible to accept that the President is six, seven or eight days without the Minister of the Interior. A government cannot be without the Minister of the Interior. Therefore I have made the decision to resign, to step aside, so that the government can continue to govern and work in favor of the Chileans ”.
The certain that the 78 votes required to approve the accusation -and thus leave Pérez suspended- would be in the Chamber of Deputies- was generating in the last hours a series of analyzes within La Moneda and the ruling party.
So, if 48 hours ago Pérez’s resignation was an unthinkable scenario for the chief of staff and for the President’s environment, yesterday afternoon the resignation was installed as a possible option, with the idea of cushion the costs for the Executive in the face of the scenario that is coming in the Senate.
In the opposition, in fact, they recognize that yesterday government officials contacted parliamentarians in the sector to sound out the spirits in the face of a possible resignation.
In the configuration of this scenario weighed, among other reasons, the infeasibility of maintaining a substitute minister for a long time in the most relevant position in the cabinet.
When the second week of October ended, Pérez attended as invited to a seminar organized by the Jaime Guzmán Foundation, linked to the UDI.
It was there that he reviewed milestones of its management, but also made a comprehensive diagnosis of the gaze of the center-right, including some of her mistakes, thus generating a series of definitions as Minister of the Interior.
Among them, he addressed the “political” origin of the so-called social outbreak, which as a sector, Pérez said, they could not “avoid”.
“October 18 had an undeniable political origin and that we cannot ignore,” he said, adding that “in Chile I believe that our responsibility is that we let the problems pass for a long time and suddenly they blew us in the face. We had many successes, indeed we were very successful, we incorporated the middle class, but when time passed and we did not make the appropriate corrections, that middle class felt, I would not say that it was betrayed, but it felt that we were driving it again towards poverty and that’s the opposite of what we wanted ”.
