Weekly Report - 17 December 2015 (WR-15-50)

Former senator and founding member of the conservative opposition Unión Demócrata Independiente (UDI) Jovino Novoa has become the first politician to receive a prison sentence in relation to the illegal campaign financing scandal involving Penta, one of Chile’s largest financial groups, which rocked the country over a year ago. The ongoing investigations into ‘Pentagate’ as well as the case involving the mining company Sociedad Química y Minera S.A. (SQM) which have also implicated members of the ruling Nueva Mayoría coalition such as Fulvio Rossi, a senator for President Michelle Bachelet’s Partido Socialista (PS), are subjecting Chile’s institutions to serious scrutiny. Given this, Bachelet’s recent appointment of Jorge Abbott Charme, a relative of Penta’s current manager, as Chile’s new attorney general, raised eyebrows.