JIL

Frente Amplio is not itself a party, but rather an umbrella organization made up of fourteen groups. Some of those groups are parties, like the Revolución Democratica of which I am a member, while others are political collectives, social movements, etc. So there is a diversity of political organizations marching under the Frente Amplio banner, where the common denominator has been the struggle against neoliberalism in Chile, a struggle waged on many different fronts that has been ongoing for years now: the student movement — both the high school movement of 2006 and the university movement from 2011 to 2013 — the “No Más AFP” movement, which is trying to end the private social security system in Chile, also social-environmental movements, feminist movements, to name just a few.

But again, the common denominator is the struggle against neoliberalism and the attempt to overcome the neoliberal model in Chile, where you find a diverse array of political expressions and political identities, ranging from those more inclined to social democratic positions, others, more Marxist, or environmentalists or feminists. Despite these differences, we have managed to agree upon a common program and to form a list of parliamentary candidates who soon will represent an important parliamentary bloc.

I would say that looking abroad, we’ve drawn inspiration from two sources. The first is Spain’s Podemos, which like Frente Amplio was informed by important social movements — namely, 15M — and includes interesting municipal projects like Barcelona en Comú that share a lot in common with Frente Amplio’s project in Valparaiso. The other is Uruguay’s Frente Amplio (the current governing coalition, led by President Tabaré Vázquez), which, while it does have a more institutional logic, is also composed of some very dynamic political forces. We’ve had the opportunity on numerous occasions to engage in dialogue with both groups and learn from them, and then to go on and adapt those lessons to the Chilean context.

We have studied the example of Uruguay’s Frente Amplio very closely. In fact, Guillier will be meeting shortly with former president José “Pepe” Mujica, of Uruguay’s Frente Amplio. It’s our hope that beyond the political photo-op, Guillier will actually learn something from Pepe Mujica. Mujica was responsible for implementing important progressive reforms — he instituted a successful collective bargaining model, something the former minister of finance for Bachelet, Rodrigo Valdés, claims is not feasible in Chile; he established a fully public social security system with a dignified pension for retirees, nothing like Chile’s unequal AFP pension system; free university education, and so on. These are all part of a legacy created by Frente Amplio’s will to realize political change in Uruguay.

Also, one of the things that particularly interested us about these precedents is how they handled elections. We were concerned that if Frente Amplio did poorly in elections that it would lead to splintering and fragmentation. The Chilean left is already highly fragmented, so that concern was always present. The positive performance has of course encouraged us to maintain the unity of the coalition.