Right-wing wins Chile election as "left" Broad Front joins the establishment
After the billionaire ex-president of Chile, Sebastián Piñera (2010-2014), won the second round of presidential elections on December 17, the bourgeois press internationally has applauded the victory over Alejandro Guillier of the ruling Social-Democrat and Stalinist coalition, New Majority, as a much needed sign of stability for bourgeois rule.
The local stock market index, IPSA, heavily weighted by the private pension funds (AFPs), jumped 7 percent after the December vote and has rallied to its all-time high, indicating high expectations that an even greater share of national income will flow into the pockets of the financial elite.
The results, however, with only one-fourth of the eligible electorate voting for Piñera, reflect overwhelming hostility to the entire bourgeois establishment and herald a new stage in the political crisis.
Piñera’s right-wing Chile Vamos coalition takes power on March 11 and is planning new attacks on workers’ living standards as dictated by the global market. The ruling class is depending on its repressive apparatus and the official “opposition” blocs, the bourgeois New Majority and the Broad Front, to block social opposition and ram through its program.
Read more: http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/01/10/chil-j10.html
