Weekly Report - 23 October 2014 (WR-14-42)

President Michelle Bachelet has emphatically rejected any illegal financing of her re-election campaign in 2013. Bachelet’s public comments last week followed several days of finger-pointing by politicians, primarily on the Right, embarrassed by the scandalous allegations of illegal campaign contributions made by the investment bank Penta. The Bachelet administration is promising a new law to make campaign financing more transparent. While both congress and the judiciary have launched parallel and overlapping investigations, the episode has merely reinforced the public perception of politicians as untrustworthy, deceitful and self-interested.