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Brazil & Southern Cone - July 2011 (ISSN 1741-4431)

Piñera reshuffles again

On 18 July Chile’s President Sebastián Piñera changed his cabinet for the third time since taking office on 10 March 2010. The two big moves are those of Joaquín Lavín (from education to planning & development) and Laurence Golborne (from energy & mining to public works). Piñera himself is under growing political pressure, especially from the Unión Democráta Independiente (UDI), the bigger and more right-wing of the two parties that backed him for the presidency in 2009 and 2010, to show that the first right-wing elected president since the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990) can remain popular. To assuage the UDI, Piñera has brought in two UDI senators to key positions in his cabinet. The latest opinion poll by the Centro de Estudios de la Realidad Contemporánea (Cerc), released in early July, put Piñera, from Renovación Nacional, at 35% support: Piñera’s disapproval rating, at 53%, is the highest for any president since the return of democracy in 1990.

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