SANTIAGO — Lidia Sandoval, a 57-year old housemaid in Chile‘s capital, says she voted for Michelle Bachelet in 2013 because she inspired her trust, was “close to the people” and a leftist. Today, however, she feels disillusioned.
“She didn’t solve people’s daily problems,” she says of Chile’s outgoing president. “We didn’t get what she promised.”
Chileans will head to the polls this Sunday to elect the country’s new president. Although Bachelet won’t be on the ballot — a law prevents her from serving two consecutive terms — many see the vote as a referendum on her leadership.
Bachelet, Chile’s first female president, is often revered internationally. Earlier this month, Forbes ranked her No. 4 on its list of the 25 Most Powerful Women in Politics in 2017. Among her listed achievements: her ability to revoke Chile’s anti-abortion law inherited from the dictatorship of the late Augusto Pinochet, legalize same-sex civil unions and turn the environment into a priority. In September, the BBC included her on its 2017 list of 100 inspirational and innovative women. The same month, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres appointed Bachelet, the former executive director of U.N. Women, to a new high-level advisory board on mediation for the promotion of diplomacy for peace.
In her own country, however, Bachelet is not as celebrated as abroad. A poll released by the think tank Center of Public Studies (CEP) at the end of October found that 64 percent of Chileans don’t have trust in her and 66 percent consider her aloof. Today, only 23 percent of people approve of the way she has led the nation, a stark contrast to the 84 percent approval rate she enjoyed at the end of her first term in 2010.
Bachelet, who has said she won’t run again in the future, started her second term in 2014 during a time of social protests and new demands for more equality. Moving away from the consensus politics that prevailed during the transition to democracy, she set an ambitious progressive agenda to make the political system more democratic, to guarantee free college, give more power to the unions and have the wealthy pay higher taxes. She also created one of the world’s largest marine reserves around Easter Island to preserve species found nowhere else.
But paradoxically, the way she led these radical changes may have paved the way back to power for conservative former President Sebastián Piñera. Piñera, a Harvard-trained economist who led the country from 2010 to 2014, leads the polls with 44.4 percent voter approval.
Piñera has made it clear throughout his campaign that he plans to revise many of Bachelet’s policies, including changing the abortion law, which he never supported, and restoring “the right” of parents “to pay for the education of their children.” At the foundation of his platform is his intention to double economic growth, increase investment rates and reduce public debt in order to revitalize the Chilean economy.
It is a vision that his two leftist contenders don’t seem to be successfully challenging. Alejandro Guillier, an independent senator and former TV news anchor who has promised to continue with Bachelet’s reforms, and Beatriz Sánchez, a former radio and TV reporter who champions a welfare state model, are both polling below 20 percent.
Experts attribute Bachelet’s declining popularity to a range of factors, including the general dissatisfaction of citizens with their political representation in Latin America, a corruption scandal involving Bachelet’s son and daughter-in-law, and Chile’s economic downturn, which has raised concern and dominated the public debate in the past three years.
But the president’s high disapproval rates also reveal a disconnect between the political elite and everyday Chileans. Ricardo González, who oversees public opinion research at CEP, explains that most of Bachelet’s agenda is the result of the student protests that started in 2011 and later expanded to other sectors — protests that, according to his data, were started by part of the upper class.
“Most protesters are 18- to 34-year-olds from the highest socioeconomic groups. They are well educated and have their basic needs covered, so they can afford to think about bigger issues such as the environment, equality and the expansion of citizens’ rights,” he says. “But most Chileans are still worried about their stability for the future.”
CEP statistics are revealing: Today only 5 percent or less of Chileans consider inequality, Constitutional reform, the environment and free education to be a top priority — all issues championed by Bachelet. On the other hand, 46 percent of Chileans rank public safety as one of the top two priorities the government should focus on, followed by health (34 percent), economic development (27 percent) and pensions (26 percent).
Eugenio Tironi, a sociologist and strategic communication consultant, says the president based her decision-making on “U.N. values,” regardless of the costs this may have domestically, which explains the admiration she inspires abroad.
“This government has been so focused on the structural reforms that it didn’t pay enough attention to the management of people’s daily life,” he says.
Although Tironi believes the issues that make Bachelet popular abroad will eventually be valued by Chileans, he thinks many people blame her reforms for the economic slowdown.
Carolina Grünwald, a senior economist from the conservative Chilean think tank Libertad y Desarrollo, is one of those people.
“There is a lack of business confidence because of her poorly implemented reforms,” she says.
Chile’s gross domestic product growth rate fell from 4 percent in 2013 to 1.5 percent this year. While unemployment hasn’t risen significantly, Grünwald notes that jobs are more precarious, with self employment figures increasing at higher rates.
Sandoval, the housemaid, is one of the many people who complain because her life hasn’t improved. In the span of two years she and her daughter were both robbed. A diabetic, she must wait several weeks before getting her routine doctor appointments in the public system.
“Health, public safety should be priorities. Not the environment,” she says. “A lot of jobs are gone, prices are up, everything is the same as before, or worse.”
Nevertheless, some say time will play in favor of Bachelet and that her efforts to turn Chile into a country with more social justice, gender equality and human rights will bear fruit.
“I believe sooner than later Bachelet will be remembered positively,” says Tironi. “But now Chileans want good management and growth. And that’s what they see when they look at Piñera.”
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Chile’s Election Serves as a Referendum on Michelle Bachelet’s Domestic Legacy originally appeared on usnews.com
