#ChileWeekly: Chilean representatives rejects fourth pension withdrawal and may now enter into the substantive discussion on the pension system #2
Two weeks ago, the government was adamant. Then it proposed its version. And now it could be celebrating its first position. The only sure thing, for now, is that the economy can breathe easy.
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Welcome to the second #ChileWeekly of @NewsFromChile. A news roundoup that tells you the most important issues of Chile. Reading it will help you to be aware of the social, political and economic changes for your survival in this country.
This content will be free forever. If you like it, you can subscribe to have access to the rest of the content like data-driven stories and some media conversation review every month.
From the rejection of pension withdrawal to the pension reform
As I was telling you yesterday on Twitter, and after seven hours of debate, the Chamber of Deputies decided to reject the bill for the fourth universal withdrawal of pension funds as well as the more restricted access initiative presented by the government.
The president of the Chamber, Raúl Soto (PPD), believes "that the government's strategy -I have told the government, the ministers and President Boric himself- was a mistake. I believe that there could have been alternatives that could have attracted more support, but jumping into the pool without water, without having a political agreement with all sectors was a risk".
Something that has been shared by many political analysts and coalitions across the spectrum. In fact, the political commentator Axel Callís said on T13 -live- after the result that "this is undoubtedly a defeat for the Government". Today, of course, he recedes a little from those sayings and graduates it:
It seems to have been agreed that the government, which has generated better instances and social aid -unlike the previous one-, never supported a fourth retirement. He realized that the Government, perhaps shooting itself in the foot, ended up winning its first battle in Congress.
And in a certain way, the independent Congressman, Andrés Giordano, summed it up in his intervention:
"When during the pandemic the application of the Employment Protection Law and the withdrawals were resorted to, the unions were extremely clear: the costs of the crises are being made to be paid with our own savings", he stated.
Likewise, he assured that "touching social security can never be the first measure we put on the table to face structural problems such as the huge gap between the cost of living, salaries, working hours and pensions".
In this sense, he emphasized that "none of this is solved with a withdrawal, it only makes it more difficult to address the underlying reasons for inequality in Chile. If we care about the people, then let us increase income, reduce the working day, improve the collective rights of workers and build a decent pension system without excuses".
For this withdrawal, Giordano argued that "more than two million people have nothing to withdraw and yet they are going to pay the costs of inflation", while another 4 million have less than 400 thousand pesos to withdraw. And in any case, the AFPs are not harmed.
Supporting this idea, the Minister of Finance, in his intervention in the session, pointed out that "what we are approving here is not a withdrawal for the people who have the greatest need, we are discussing a withdrawal for around 10 million people and, among these people, those who have larger balances in their capitalization accounts have the possibility of withdrawing larger funds".
The important thing is that now, the government will have the possibility of attacking the underlying problems that Giordano talks about. The ball is in their hands.
But of course, La Tercera cares more about who you have a press conference with and who you don't have a press conference with. The reality is that the economy, which is so important to these media, is breathing easy today.
The strong fake news campaign that calls for the rejection of Chile's new constitution
An investigation published by El Mostrador shows how things are moving in social networks to prevent the approval of the new Constitution. They do so by securing false articles, wedges taken out of context and spending a significant amount of money on advertising in these networks.
An example is the "Fundación Ciudadanos en Acción", a group that includes as its web page the site reformalareforma.cl, of Bernardo Fontaine. In fact, the conventional, member of several company boards and closely linked to the Matte group, appears in several videos disclosed by this group on Facebook, platform in which the group has invested in the last days, between April 4 and 10, $1,028,200 in advertising in favor of the Rejection, while from August 4, 2020 to date its investment in promotion of political material amounted to $34,029,826.
The Facebook page "El Descueve" has invested $4,773,358 from August 4, 2020 to date. However, since April 4 it has spent $3,002,883 . It has a "mirror" page, "La Convención al Instante", which publishes the same videos, but adds audiovisual content with the conventional Bárbara Rebolledo. From August 4, 2020 to April 10, 2022, it has invested $5,186,250, of which $2,917,109 correspond to different disbursements made since April 4.
Slightly more creative is the bet of "Hacheísmo", of the publicist of the Universidad del Desarrollo, Humberto Boellert, who declares himself - in his web page hacheismo.com as the "first professional activist", an emerging figure of the activism of the ultra-right, who was seen in the presidential campaign of José Antonio Kast with Francisco Muñoz -alias "Pancho Malo"- the former leader of the Garra Blanca; the supporters of one of Chile's most popular soccer teams, Colo Colo.
From August 4, 2020 to April 10 of this year, Hacheísmo has invested $4,703,326. Of this sum, $3,188,133 has been invested in the last few days. For his campaign he created a character: "Aunt Norma", a puppet who talks to people in public and disseminates falsehoods about the Constitutional Convention. He declares himself "supreme leader" of virtual activism, and in his "late Hacheism" he has had as guests Alexis López Tapia, whom he refers to as "professor", founder of the movement of national socialist inspiration Patria Nueva Sociedad.
Allegedly he is the creator of the controversial theory called "Dissipated Molecular Revolution", the strategy that -in the opinion of this referent of the Chilean ultra-right wing- has allowed the political and social destabilization in countries like Chile and Colombia, where social protests have been registered in 2019.
Certainly more institutional is the contribution of "Minería y Futuro" to the conversation, a platform that brings together private mining and supply companies, whose main objective is to lobby for the preservation of the concession model. In this Facebook account, which enjoys greater seriousness, a notable level of production and which has interviews with businessmen, consultants and former government officials (from Chile Vamos and the former Concertación-Nueva Mayoría, such as Eduardo Bitran), a whopping $117,007,534 has been invested between August 4, 2020 and April 10, 2022. Between April 4 and April 10, it has disbursed 3,545,644 pesos.
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