Michelle Bachelet leaves the UN and returns to Chile at a key moment in the constituent process

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet leaves after speaking to the press at the opening of the 50th session of the UN Human Rights Council, in Geneva on June 13, 2022.FABRICE COFFRINI (AFP)

The socialist Michelle Bachelet, president of Chile for two terms (2006-2010 and 2014-2018) announced this Monday that she will not run for a second term to lead the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, based in Geneva, a position she has held since September 2018. Through a statement, Bachelet argued "personal reasons", for which she will end her functions on August 31.

The announcement of his return to the country – "it is time to return to Chile and to my family" – has caused a stir in Chilean politics: it occurs at key moments in the constituent process, just 12 weeks before the plebiscite that will define the fate of a new Constitution, on September 4.

The current president, Gabriel Boric, has reacted quickly to the news: “Welcome back”, he wrote to him through Twitter.

The Secretary General of the UN, António Guterres, expressed words of gratitude to the management of the Chilean socialist, who in May made a controversial trip to China.

“I pay tribute to her tireless work and dedication as head of the UN Human Rights Office.

I am deeply grateful for her exceptional leadership and her strong commitment to the realization of human rights for all.”

Today I have spoken before @UN_HRC, opening my last session as High Commissioner.

I will not run for a second term for personal reasons.

It is time to return to Chile and my family.

I call on States to work together to solve human rights challenges.

– Michelle Bachelet (@mbachelet) June 13, 2022

The weight that Bachelet may have in current Chilean politics is not evident.

After his two terms, he handed over power to the right of Sebastián Piñera, in 2010 and in 2018. But the Chilean electorate has shown its volatility and the socialist has already stated that he is for the option of approving the new Constitution, that the convention constitutional refinement to deliver a final version to President Boric in the first days of July.

“I think it is a great opportunity and I hope it will be approved,” Bachelet assured in May, although he said that he had not yet read the final document.

The announcement comes at key moments in the Chilean constitutional process.

According to various surveys, there is a large number of undecided with a view to the referendum, which will be mandatory.

The survey by the Center for Public Studies, released last Thursday, showed that 25% are about to approve the text and 27% are about to reject it, while 37% have not decided.

44% also say that they are not interested in the work of the convention.

The role that Bachelet can play in the days before the plebiscite could help the option of approving a new text, which replaces the current Magna Carta that was designed in the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, but that in democracy has been reformed in dozens of occasions.

The current Constitution, in fact, bears the signature of the socialist president Ricardo Lagos,

In her last term, Bachelet carried out a citizen process to make a proposal for a new Constitution, but the project was presented in her last days at La Moneda.

After today's announcement, the analysis points to the role that it could play to push the option of approving the new text, as the Boric government seeks.

"If indeed the undecided are predominantly women, over 55 years of age and from popular strata, Bachelet's return for the approval campaign makes all the sense in the world", assured the political scientist and academic from the University of Talca, Mauricio Morales .

Between Bachelet and the world of Boric, a different generation of the left, there is evident political harmony.

The Broad Front was born with a very critical speech to the center-left Concertación that governed Chile between 1990 and 2010, a coalition of which Bachelet was minister and president in her first term.

Boric himself, in fact, was highly critical of Bachelet on multiple occasions.

The doctor, however, who opened the coalition to the Communist Party – the beginning of the end of the alliance between Christian Democrats and Socialists – pushed this generation of the left that she always looked favorably on.

He did it since its foundation, where several of the current leaders of the Broad Front were formed, and with some direct political decisions to get seats in the Chamber of Deputies in the 2013 elections. His youngest daughter, in fact, was close to the Broad Front and voted for their candidates.

"The young people of the Broad Front are children of militants of traditional parties," said the socialist in 2017.

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