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Weekly Report - 12 January 2012 (WR-12-02)

CHILE: Piñera lets opportunity slip through his fingers

President Sebastián Piñera was just starting to regain the initiative. His government had pushed through one meaningful political reform - making the vote voluntary and introducing automatic registration - and he was holding serious talks with his predecessors over the possible overhaul of the binomial political system, one of the relics of the Pinochet-era (1974-1990). And then his government announced that the word “dictatorship” would be replaced by “military regime” in school history textbooks to describe this era. This put Piñera’s new education minister, Harald Beyer, on the back foot, and gave fresh momentum to student protesters. To compound matters further the government then announced a tepid reform agenda for 2012 and 2013, suggesting Piñera’s presidential chats were more show than substance.

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