Brazil & Southern Cone - February 2014 (ISSN 1741-4431)

Chile’s president-elect Michelle Bachelet, who is due to begin her second (non consecutive) four-year term on 11 March, has unveiled her 23-member cabinet. Her choices were always likely to attract scrutiny given the challenging task of balancing competing interests from the five parties in her Nueva Mayoría coalition, an electoral alliance forged last year between the Partido Comunista de Chile (PCCh) and the traditional quadripartite Concertación (comprising Bachelet’s Partido Socialista [PS] along with the Partido por la Democracia [PPD]; the Partido Democracia Cristiana [PDC] and the Partido Radical Social Demócrata [PRSD]).

The big winner in the new cabinet looks to be the smaller PPD which, with 15 seats in the new 120-seat lower chamber and six of the 38 senate seats, was awarded the most ministerial posts – six in all. While the incoming team will include some new faces, Bachelet above all favoured experience over factors like gender parity (see sidebar). Two of the key portfolios – education and foreign affairs, went to PPD heavyweights and political veterans Nicolás Eyzaguirre and Heraldo Muñoz. Both previously served in the Concertación administration led by Ricardo Lagos (2000-2006) – Muñoz as government spokesperson and Eyzaguirre as finance minister. Muñoz and Eyzaguirre were well received, although Melissa Sepúlveda, the president of the Federación de Estudiantes de la Universidad de Chile [Fech] did grumble that Eyzaguirre’s background was in finance rather than education.

The finance ministry went to another seasoned official, Alberto Arenas (PS), who served as the director of the state budget under Bachelet’s first mandate (2006-2010). One appointment to raise eyebrows was that of the new interior minister and cabinet chief, the most senior position, which went to a core member of Bachelet’s inner circle, Rodrigo Peñailillo, a former governor of Arauca (2002-2005) who coordinated her presidential campaign but has not previously held a cabinet post.

Nueva Mayoría’s biggest party, the PDC (which will have 22 deputies and six senators in the new legislature), got five cabinet posts. Bachelet’s PS, which will have 15 deputies and six senators, also received five cabinet posts. The PRSD, which will have six seats in the lower chamber, got two posts, while the PCCh which also won six seats in the lower chamber, was awarded its first ever cabinet post – the women’s ministry.

A warning sign

Challenges from within the Nueva Mayoría, particularly from the more radical leftist groups over contentious issues like education, has already forced Bachelet to make one U-turn. While Eyzaguirre’s appointment caused some disgruntlement among the student movement, Bachelet’s choice of Claudia Peirano as his number two, which she announced on 30 January, sparked an outcry both within and beyond the Nueva Mayoria, forcing Peirano to step aside five days later.

Former student leaders and now newly-elected deputies like the former Fech leader Camilla Vallejo (PCCh) objected to Peirano because of a letter against free higher education that she co-signed along with other public figures back in 2011. It was published in the national daily El Mercurio. That Peirano also owns a consultancy firm that provides services to a network of private colleges owned by her former husband, Walter Oliva, also prompted complaints about a potential conflict of interests. Members of the outgoing coalition like Cristián Mockenberg, vice-president of Renovación Nacional, were among those to flag up the episode as the first major setback for Bachelet and indicative of the power wielded over the president by the Nueva Mayoría’s radical members.

Another issue that has been highly contentious for the outgoing administration led by President Sebastián Piñera is that of the stalled HidroAysén mega-dam project. A special ministerial committee found, on 30 January 2014, that more studies were required. This effectively defers the final decision as to whether it should proceed to the Bachelet government. Piñera’s energy minister Jorge Bunster told reporters that the two of the 35 discussion points regarding the project – which involves the construction of five dams in Aysén (Region XI) - required additional investigation. The local press is reporting that these studies could take between eight months to a year.

In her manifesto, Bachelet said that “as it stands HidroAysén is not viable”. However her appointment of Máximo Pacheco Matte (PS) as her new energy minister has been ill received by environmentalists. They are suspicious of the fact that Group Matte (with which he has familial links) has a 35% share in the Chilean energy company Colbún, which owns 51% of HidroAysén (with the remainder held by Endesa of Spain). In his acceptance speech, Pacheco hinted at his support for the project, saying that while Bachelet has “many doubts” regarding the “complex project”… “unfortunately decisions regarding energy are all very complex because they have a lot of impact…people need energy in their homes…Chile needs to resolve these issues”. It is worth noting however that the new environment minister, Pablo Badenier (PDC), opposes the project.

• Gender parity

President-elect Michelle Bachelet, the first director of UN Women, appointed just nine women to her new 23-member cabinet, meaning that 39% of the cabinet is female. This is still an improvement on the outgoing cabinet, in which there are just six women.