Camila Vallejo, student leader, gets ready for a seat in Chilean congress
Camila Vallejo, student leader, gets ready for a seat in Chilean congress
In 2011 she was the face of an uprising. Today, with Chile in a 'new era', she and fellow activists are poised to become MPs
Jonathan Franklin in Santiago
The Observer, Saturday 16 November 2013
If someone had told Camila Vallejo during the student uprisings in 2011 that she and her fellow student leaders would end up as elected members of congress, she would have emphatically disagreed. "I would have said you are crazy!" she told the Observer last week.
But polls show that three former student activists are poised to win congressional seats on Sunday, as Chileans head to vote in presidential and congressional elections.
The former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet, a socialist paediatrician and former political prisoner who was tortured during the Pinochet dictatorship, heads the New Majority coalition and is expected to easily win the presidential race. Even if Bachelet receives less than 50% in the crowded nine-candidate field, she will be the overwhelming favourite to triumph in the 15 December runoff. Bachelet's main opponent, Evelyn Matthei, is the daughter of a pro-Pinochet military leader and her extreme-right views are finding little resonance with Chile's increasingly progressive electorate.
"The rightwing is in intensive care. You can see it in the polls and in the streets," said Vallejo, the 25-year-old former student leader. "They are unleashing pure propaganda. It's an attempt to salvage the low turnout they maintain. It's sad … they could have taken the high road and had a serious debate and a discussion about political platforms."
More:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/17/chilean-student-activists-congress
