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Hello dear readers,
We are starting the year with new vigor. The first day of business in January confirms that the economy is recovering. The monthly economic activity indicator (Imacec) for November was 1.2%, guaranteeing that 2023 will end in the blue and recession fears are finally behind us. The constitutional uncertainty that has held the country in suspense for four years is clearing up and Gabriel Boric's government is beginning to find reason to celebrate. The agreement between SQM and state-owned copper company Codelco to join forces in the future development of the lithium industry brought respite to a government that has had a turbulent year, to say the least. The public-private alliance in which the state of Chile will take control was struck after seven months of negotiations and shows signs of leaving the government's most ideological ideas behind. Paradoxically, it will be Boric, Chile's most left-wing president since the return of democracy, who will lay the foundations for a state alliance with the company built by Julio Ponce, Augusto Pinochet's former son-in-law.
But alongside the good news, there are also the problems that were swept under the carpet in the four years of constitutional debate. Rape childhoods come to the surface. Antonia Laborde wrote about it: A third of the population living in camps is under 18 years old. According to the Recrea Foundation study, children and young people living in these neighborhoods spend an average of 10 years of their initial education without access to basic services and are exposed to poverty and overcrowding. Education is also stalling.
As if that were not enough, the security crisis, which does not abate, is taking its toll on the most vulnerable, as Ana María Sanhueza explains in this article. Three children aged three, 10 and 13 were shot during the Christmas holidays, and this weekend a 13-year-old girl died in the community of Pedro Aguirre Cerda when she was hit by a crazy bullet in the middle of a shootout.
Another open matter in Chile is what is happening in the world of culture. Expectations that Boric's government would bring about a cultural revival collided with a confusing agenda and three ministers in the field in less than two years. The director of the Teatro a Mil, Carmen Romero, speaks about this in an interview with EL PAÍS, where she says: “We should not neglect everything great that has already been built.”
In politics, the mood is beginning to calm down after the hectic weeks before the referendum and the parties are thinking more long-term with a view to the gubernatorial and mayoral elections in 2024 and the presidential and parliamentary elections in 2025. She is still undecided about where to move, whether to build bridges with the Republicans or retreat toward the center to distance herself from Kast. In this scenario, Pablo Longueira, the former chairman of the UDI, reappears to issue a warning: “If Chile Vamos is not managed well, the exact same thing that happened to the Concertación could happen to it, namely disappear,” he warns his industry in an interview by Rocío Montes.
Other stories
Thank you for receiving us in your inbox. Below we leave you the best journalistic articles of the week written by the EL PAÍS editorial team in Chile.
The Neruda case, a judicial investigation that has been investigating the death of the Chilean poet since 2011, still has several unresolved aspects. Ana María Sanhueza writes about this in this report, in which she describes the different phases of the legal process. In January this year it was exactly a year since it entered the decisive phase, when the third scientific panel to intervene in the case in 12 years met.
Amid the furore caused by the regulations of the so-called Uber law, I interviewed sociologist Arturo Arriagada, researcher with the Fairwork Project, which studies how new digital platforms are changing the labor market and the way people understand work.
In this column, author Patricio Fernández analyzes the phases that Chile has experienced since the social outbreak of 2019 and how the country is returning to the starting point after two failed processes. The networks share responsibility for this, he says. “Contrary to what we thought, they segmented themselves rather than linked together,” he accuses.
In this interview by Ana María Sanhueza, Abraham Santibáñez, winner of the 2015 Chilean National Prize for Journalism, member of the Chilean Language Academy and recently appointed Professor Emeritus at the University of Diego Portales, reviews his story at the age of 85 and reflects on how he feels has changed his profession. “I say again, interpretive journalism, explanations. “You have to combine the news of the day with the explanations,” he says.
Thank you, dear readers. We'll be back in your inboxes in another week.