It's a cold autumn day, but Nicolás Eyzaguirre (Santiago, 70 years old), moves by bicycle through Santiago de Chile. The economist spent years in the front line of politics as Minister of Finance of Ricardo Lagos (2000-2006) and then, in the second period of Michelle Bachelet (2014-2018), as Minister of Education, of the General Secretariat of the Presidency and, again, of Finance. A member of the center-left PPD party, he says that today he has more time to read, watch television and study topics that interest him. The production that has him trapped these days is Outlander, more than for the love story on which the series is based, for the way it tells the story of eighteenth-century England. Eyzaguirre is very interested in history and turns to it to explain the latest events in Chilean politics.
He was director of the Western Hemisphere Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) between 2008 and 2012 and says that, to understand what happened in the last election of constitutional councilors on May 7, where the far-right Republican Party won 35% of the vote and won 23 of the 51 seats on the council, We must go back to 2008, the year of the subprime crisis. "The world cracked and protectionist tendencies began to emerge very strongly, similar to what happened in the Great Depression of 1929. And that has only deepened with the problems of world hegemony between the US and China and, now, the Russia-Ukraine axis, China and even India," he says.
This protectionism, he explains, has caused world trade to grow a third of what it did in previous years and the effects on Chile – a country that benefited especially thanks to free trade – to be evident. From there, he says, "the automatic pilot with which the Chilean economy grew during the first 20 years of the Concertación, between 1990 and 2010, marked by an orderly macroeconomic policy and international trade, stopped." The problem, says Eyzaguirre in a cafeteria in the eastern part of Santiago de Chile, where he drinks coffee and smokes, is that "growth was punctured." "And our internal contradictions and our inability to resolve them have come to light in a very obvious way." Very close to both Lagos and Bachelet, he maintains that when the country grew at rates of 5% or 6%, as happened in the first years of the Concertación, although there was inequality and the gaps were not shortened, "there was the prospect of a better tomorrow." "It's a glue that prevents social disruption."
Question. Was that when the tensions started?
Answer. There our structural problems came to the surface. The good period of the Concertación is exhausted, Sebastián Piñera arrives who has a summer of San Juan between 2010 and 2012, because copper rises a lot, but already in 2013 the economy begins to go down and President Bachelet assumes her second term with a fairly low economy. This international protectionism prevents exports from growing and between 2014 and 2017 there are bad economic figures, but some social peace. Piñera arrives again in 2018, promises that he will reinvent the car and that we will grow again as before and, nevertheless, it is horrendous. This idea that "tomorrow will be better, then I put up with inequality" is already deteriorating. No one believes that anymore. The social explosion of 2019 is the most convincing sign that people are no longer believing that the system works well for them.
Q. How does that tension relate to the triumph of the Republican Party on May 7?
A. You need to have consensus to make reforms that are evident. And the underlying problem is that we are unable to agree on structural reforms. In the last three governments it has been absolutely clear that they win and after 12 or 18 months they are already in the ground in approval. What I believe, and my friend Eduardo Engel did a good article about this in EL PAÍS, is in the thesis of the vitrineo [the voter who looks at the windows and decides].
Q. Does that showcase then explain the Republican triumph?
A. It is that first they believe the promise to President Bachelet and it does not work. Then Piñera and neither. After the social outbreak, the electorate opted for the Frente Amplio and things did not change so much. So now the only pristine left is Kast [leader of the Republican Party]. But we're going to continue like the egg shopper [the children's game that sends over and over again to the other corner]. I am absolutely convinced that if Kast is president in 2026 and he represents an extreme, he is not going to agree with anyone, or little. And it's going to have another social crisis after 12 to 18 months and then people don't know where they're going to look, because they've tried everything. In Chile, now the only ones who have credibility are the Republicans, but let's see how long it lasts.
Q. What is failing in the Boric government today?
A. It is that people have stopped believing everyone, anyone who is at the top, in power, because since we do not have the ability to agree, whoever is at the top will never be able to solve the problems. But there is another problem: drug trafficking and [irregular] immigration came upon us. It would have happened more or less to any government that was there now, that these problems exploded in their faces, just as other things exploded in others. This dropped 20 points of adhesion immediately. Just as it happened to us in 2015 with the Caval case with Bachelet, [political scandal linked to the son of the former president], who killed us.
Q. Did the current government react late in terms of security?
R. The Government has tried to react. Carolina Tohá [Minister of the Interior], who is my friend, is the true champion of the issue of citizen security, but the problem is that they no longer believe the government, because it started badly. Would it have happened the same to any Administration? I think a little less to other governments, because this one started very naïve on the issue of citizen security. The visit of former Interior Minister Izkia Siches to Temucuicui [Mapuche community that received her with bullets in the first days of government] is proof. And then the pardons [the president pardoned 13 prisoners of the social outbreak at the end of last December] is the quintessence of how they had not really understood the problem. Boric had his own explosion: citizen security. It was the weakest flank he had.
Q. Do you think that this disaffection with the government also has to do with what Natalia Piergentili, president of the PPD, your party, said over the weekend that the government speaks to the "hairy monkeys" and "the comrades" [in reference to the identity agendas of the new left]?
A. What Natalia was trying to do was draw attention to the need to build majority agendas. And that playing your agenda – I'm trying to interpret it – on more niche issues, on sex-generic issues, and on minorities, does not build a national project. But he said it lousy.
Q. Was it a problem of form only?
A. But also in substance, because I do not think that the problem is that the government does not try to have a majority program, but that a fundamental part of that is citizen security and the government lost credibility in this matter.
Q. Where should the PDP look now, having failed to win any councillors in the last election?
A. One of Chile's big problems is our inability to oppose agreement, therefore I support the 5% threshold [the draft of the New Constitution proposes that political parties should have a representation threshold of 5% of voters]. And the PDP doesn't have 5%.
Q. Should they merge with the Socialist Party?
A. Of course. We must form as broad a federation as possible. It doesn't make any sense that we have radicals, liberals, socialists, PPD. None. We should be a grand coalition. Even I would think that, since there is a great risk of conservative restoration, which would do us a lot of harm, the ability to agree is fundamental. I hope there will be a coalition that unites all the ruling party but if not, at least the forces I named.
Q. And is the oven for buns?
A. Human contumacia should never be minimized.
Q. What do you think of what the National Lithium Strategy proposes that the State has to be the controller of large projects?
A. One thing we have learned in the history of Chile is that, when you completely hand over to private control a mineral that produces rents and that could be a tremendous benefit to the state because it is lucky enough to be the only one that has it, they take the nugget out of your soul. The State today does not have the technological knowledge, Albemarle and SQM [the companies that have leases in the Salar de Atacama] do. But I do not believe that the only way to ensure a fair remuneration for the State for the ownership of the Salar de Atacama is to have 51%.
Q. Are there other ways?
A. There are other ways: shareholder agreements, gold share, that is, even if you are a minority, you have the right to veto certain decisions. There are those who think that having 51% is fundamental. I don't believe in that. What I believe is that you need a structure in this joint venture (shared risk) that ensures a profit and the guarantee that they are not preying on the environment.