Bachelet Is Back: Reform Prospects and the Future of Democracy in Chile

Abstract

Michelle Bachelet swept to victory for the second time in the 2013 Chilean presidential elections, ushering in a fifth Concertación (now Nueva Mayoría) government. However, the political moment President Bachelet faces now is fundamentally different from that of her first term (2006–2010). By most accounts, Chile is experiencing a deep crisis of democratic representation, with widespread discontent, protests, emerging scandals, and demands for reform. This political discontent is largely a response to the enduring legacy of the Pinochet dictatorship’s policies and the lack of significant and bold reforms to challenge Chile’s deep inequalities during the four Concertación governments and single government of the Right that followed (Sehnbruch and Siavelis 2014). Bachelet thus came to power facing demands for deep and significant reforms, including a rewriting of the Pinochet era Constitution. At the same time, she has had to consistently build majorities to initiate for reform, holding together her potentially fractious Nueva Mayoría coalition, which included parties ranging from the centrist Christian Democrats to the Far Left Communists, as well as four deputies from the powerful student movement. Not only are there more parties than during the Concertación years, but the weight of the Left has increased, making for potentially more opposition from the Right. Finally, though she had some initial success in pushing forward her reform agenda, a series of scandals, the most serious of which for her involved her son, have diminished the likelihood of a further advance in her reform agenda.