Photo courtesy of Nueva Sociedad. All rights reserved. This article is being published as part of the partnership between Nueva Sociedad and democraciaAbierta. You can read the original article here.
The apparent fragmentation of Chilean progressives before the elections of November 19 is truly paradoxical. This is happening after a four-year government led by Michelle Bachelet, who was elected President for the second time in 2013 with the most progressive programme ever written or imagined by a center-left coalition since the return to democracy in 1990.
That second victory of hers came after the four parties that make up the Coalition of Parties for Democracy (the Party for Democracy, the Socialist Party, the Christian Democratic Party and the Democratic Socialist Radical Party) included in their coalition the Communist Party. The New Majority was thus established. After the victory at the polls, it was expected that the new government would significantly advance a progressive agenda. The coalition won 20 out of 28 senators (53%) and 67 out of 120 representatives (56%). If we add the leftwing independents, the totals were 55% and 58% respectively. As for the Presidency, Michelle Bachelet got 46.7% of the votes in the first round, and an overwhelming 62% in the second round.
