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

The big political beneficiary of the three months of protests is an independent politician currently outside congress, Marco Enríquez-Ominami. Enríquez-Ominami, a former socialist deputy, ran for the presidency in 2009 and claims that both the left-of-centre Concertación (which ruled Chile from 1990  to 2010) and the current right-wing government led by President Sebastián Piñera are much the same.

What is striking from opinion polls is that the ratings of the government and the opposition alike are very low. On 4 August the Centro de Estudios Públicos (CEP) poll, which takes six monthly readings, put President Piñera’s support at just 26%, the lowest for any president since the country’s return to democracy in 1990. His rejection rate was also at a post-1990 record high of 52%.

In December 2010, the CEP put Piñera’s support at 44% and his disapproval at 36%. It is worth noting, however, that public support for Piñera’s education policy appears to have risen, going from from 38% at the end of 2010 to 44%. However respondents’ evaluation of the government’s implementation of its education policies has fallen, from 32% support at the end of 2010 to 10% support now.

Curiously, 46% of those polled by the CEP disapprove of the Concertación and only 17% approve, while 25% are neutral and 12% don’t know or don’t care. In Santiago, support for the Concertación is running at just 9%, while disapproval is now up to 53%.

• Same sex civil unions
  In early August President Piñera sent a bill to congress to recognise same-sex civil unions. The bill puts opposite-sex and same-sex couples on the same footing, Piñera said, adding provocatively, “there is no such thing as one type of family; there are multiple forms and expressions of family.” The fact that the leaders of both Unión Demócrata Independiente and Renovación Nacional boycotted the launch of the bill indicates that the Right is not happy. Piñera attempted to placate his base by insisting that this bill will not be the prelude to the recognition of gay marriage.