Pandora Papers and Piñera’s potential impeachment rattle presidential campaign in Chile

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The mention of Chile’s president Sebastián Piñera in the Pandora Papers investigation and his potential impeachment have shaken up an electoral campaign that until now had been running with no major shocks.

The leak, which has traveled the world, comes less than 5 weeks before the November 21 elections, when Chileans will choose president, deputies and senators in what are considered to be the most important elections since the end of the military dictatorship.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), in cooperation with Chilean media CIPER and LaBot, on Sunday disclosed that the Minera Dominga megaproject was sold in 2010 to entrepreneur and friend of the presidential family Carlos Alberto Délano in an operation partly conducted in the British Virgin Islands.

Payment was supposed to be made in 3 installments, but the last one was on condition that the area would not be declared environmentally protected, a decision that depended on Piñera who had taken office for his first term just a few months earlier, according to the ICIJ.

The president’s defense focused on the 2017 court ruling to dismiss the case and the fact that Piñera, with one of Chile’s largest fortunes and who will complete his second non-consecutive term in March 2022, had disassociated himself from his companies “more than 12 years ago.”

“GREATER POLARIZATION”.

However, the damage control strategy seems not to have had any effect and, while the opposition announced a constitutional accusation against Piñera, the ruling party fears an important electoral cost.

“Polarization is going to be greater. The opposition candidates are going to push for the constitutional accusation and the 4th withdrawal of pension funds, two issues that are going to move in parallel,” said University of Talca’s Mauricio Morales.

He added that the right-wing “will be desperate to disassociate itself from the government even further” because “defending Piñera in these circumstances is political suicide.”

Although there are 7 candidates, the main dispute to advance to the second round and fight for La Moneda (the Chilean White House) in the December 19 ballot is between leftist Gabriel Boric (first in all polls), pro-government Sebastián Sichel, far-right José Antonio Kast and Christian Democrat Yasna Provoste.

Head of the Political Science program at the University of Chile Claudia Heiss, believes that the Pandora Papers “reinforce the need to separate money from politics” and the one who is most damaged is Sichel, who is “seen as Piñera’s protégé and the candidate who is closest to entrepreneurs.”

San Sebastian University’s School of Government director Jaime Abedrapo, points to another aspect and to “a new fracture within the center-left,” given that the constitutional accusation is being promoted by the Communist Party and the Frente Amplio, which support Boric.

“Provoste’s supporters may disassociate themselves in the end to try to damage Boric. There is nothing written and neither should we lose sight of the potential political exploitation of Kast, who is growing in the polls,” Abedrapo added.

The constitutional accusation could lead to Piñera’s removal or ineligibility to hold public office, and for it to prosper and reach the Senate, the body that acts as a court, an absolute majority in the Chamber of Deputies is required.

If presented next week, it would be the second attempt to judge the ruler politically, after the failed bid in November 2019 for alleged human rights violations amid the massive protests against inequality, the most serious since the end of the military dictatorship.

The person who reaches La Moneda will have to redirect a country that in 2019 experienced serious protests and implement the rules of the new Constitution, which began to be drafted last July and must be approved in a referendum in 2022.