"Latin America requires that Mexico and Brazil be a little coordinated"

Ricardo Lagos (Santiago de Chile, 82 years old) does not stop. The former president of Chile finished the second part of his political memoirs in May, in the middle of the quarantine due to the pandemic that broke out in the country two months earlier and which has already caused more than 10,000 deaths. In My Life, Governing for Democracy , the socialist leader recounts from the triumph of the opponents of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship in the 1988 plebiscite to the government he led between 2000 and 2006. From the months locked in his house in the capital Chilean, says on the phone: "I have a pair of Zoom a day at least."

Question. Looking back… Was being president worth it?

Reply. Oh, how difficult. I explain in the book the reasons why I became president ...

Q. The one I ask you is a slightly different question: if it was worth it.

R. I think it was worth it for Chile. Sure, personally there is satisfaction when you retire with a high level of support from the public. Obviously, citizens can then look back and say: "The truth, it was not so bad." To think that the problem was not the 30 pesos of the rise of the subway ticket, but that it was 30 years the bad thing [the criticism that was born in the middle of the social revolts of October against the Chilean transition]. The only thing I can say is that I do not know of another stage in the history of Chile with the level of success we achieved between 1990 and 2010, from an economic point of view, social advancement, life expectancy, infant mortality and indicators that they love each other. And I do know some history of Chile.

P. This volume of memoirs bears the subtitle Governing for democracy . What's behind that concept?

A. The concept is relatively simple. In democracy, broad definitions are taken by citizens and then instruments are sought. Once these instruments are applied and are successful, they change the country. Therefore, when one says to govern for democracy, it is to govern to face the new challenges that are being faced and when I do not take charge of those new challenges, disaffection occurs.

Q. For example?

R. You have a country with 40% poor. It is obvious that your problem is poverty, because it is not possible to have 40% poor. But when after 10 years you lowered poverty from 40% to 20%, you have two problems: that you are still 20% poor and that they must continue to decrease, but at the same time 20% of your citizens who now have other demands that already they are not those of poverty.

Q. Is this way explained the criticisms that have spread in Chile about the transition? Something like 'we were prisoners of our own success'.

R. But it is a real paradox. I will never forget a phrase I heard from Felipe González when he lost the elections in 1996: "We did not realize that in these 14 years we had changed Spain."

Q. You took office in 2000. What obstacles to governing do you see in 2020 that did not exist two decades ago?

R. To begin with, I am talking to you thanks to a device that I have in my hand, which is different from before: I have all the human knowledge accumulated through Wikipedia. As soon as a leader tells me something, through this device I can put him in his place by sending him a tweet. It happens to me frequently: they send me to a good part.

P. On Twitter.

A. Sure. And that means that there is a relationship between the citizen and the ruler infinitely more horizontal than the verticality that existed before. So, they are going to start governing in different ways and I have no doubt that there will be new political institutions. Democracy will always be representative. Those representatives, however, will have to establish some mechanism to learn to listen in a more direct way.

Q. You were no longer in La Moneda when the iPhone was born in 2007. Did the apparatus finally beat democracy?

R. The device rather can help improve democracy. Now, something else is fake news and other issues of different magnitude, such as disqualification. But it is not a problem of the device or of Twitter. What happens in Chile also happens in the rest of Latin America: frustration is the norm. Making the public debate a discussion between two options, black or white, is very dangerous. The public debate is a bit more complex.

Q. What do you think the post-pandemic world will be like?

A. They are saying that probably, even if we get a vaccine, the possibility of new viruses will be with us for a long time. Therefore, we should understand that since in the face of the severity of climate change we made a great international agreement reviewed every year, the time has come to have an agreement of the same size regarding not the coronavirus, but the pandemics.

Q. To agree on what?

R. To discuss, for example: is it possible that the next time the purchase of the famous mechanical ventilators can be made in advance by the WHO and that it is a decision of the countries to see how it will be financed? Is it possible that the work of a vaccine can be done through an international agreement, so that everyone does not run away to see where they can get it faster? In other words: the pandemic is important enough that there is an international treaty between civilized countries. It is very different that there is a single great power buying what is necessary to face it through the WHO or another organism, that each one scratches with their own nails, to occupy a slightly vulgar expression.

Q. What role is Latin America going to play in this new world that you describe? Will we come out better or will we sink?

R. To exist Latin America requires at least that the big ones, which are Mexico and Brazil, be a little coordinated. Any Latin American position requires an agreement. How is it possible that we have not said anything collectively as countries and a good number of countries have accepted that the next president of the Inter-American Bank is a citizen of the United States? That is disrespecting Latin America. What the United States has done seems unacceptable to me.

Q. In this second part of your memoirs, you review what happened in the framework of the Security Council in 2003, when Chile, while you were president, did not give Bush the vote to invade Iraq. Is there room for Latin America now to stand up to Trump like this?

R. Latin America is in a position to say: "Look, I demand respect." Something of this magnitude must have been discussed among all. We should leave behind this situation where the level of integration of Latin America is so fading.

Q. Where does the region stand in the China-United States fight?

R. We Latin Americans have to put what are the interests of Latin America first, and Latin America has very important investments from the United States. And also Latin America has very important exports to China. Consequently, what we have to do is a policy of total autonomy. What we cannot accept are readings that we belong to sphere A or B.

Q. What if there is a trade war?

R. If there is a trade war, well, let's try to defend ourselves from the splinters that can fall from a war, but we don't enter that war. I think this is important to say in advance, because… are we going to receive splinters from one to the other depending on how we behave? This leads me to something obvious: Latin America must look and seek to strengthen ties with Europe with greater intensity, because - let's say it with some frankness - Europe is in the same dilemma: how much it looks towards China, how much it looks towards the United States. We have common histories and values ​​that are essential in international relations. And in good time that the European Union is getting stronger, let's call it that. Practically all Latin American countries have some understanding with Europe and the only thing that is pending is the agreement with Mercosur.