Weekly Report - 21 October 2010 (WR-10-42)

When the 33 miners were successfully winched to safety last week, the media was full of psychoanalysts expatiating on the difficulties of managing fame but nobody saw fit to offer the same advice to a little-known politician who shot to international prominence after the rescue operation. Laurence Golborne, the mining minister, was the least recognised member of the cabinet. He is now the most popular politician in Chile by a country mile, and is being touted as a successor to President Sebastián Piñera. Smooth, charming and media savvy, Golborne has many of the intangible qualities a head of state requires but capitalising on the political opportunity provided by the mining rescue could pose a still greater challenge.