The moderates fight back

AFTER securing a landslide electoral victory on the most left-wing platform Chile has seen in more than 40 years, Michelle Bachelet has lost no time in implementing her programme. In her first four months in office, the flurry of proposals has included an ambitious tax bill and a complex education reform. One of her coalition’s leaders has called for the government to use its legislative majority as a “steamroller”; another wants to deploy it as a “retroexcavadora” (backhoe loader) to demolish Chile’s “neoliberal model”. So just how radical is her government going to be?

Her aim, she often says, is to make Chile a fairer, less unequal and more democratic country. Over the past quarter-century, since a referendum put an end to the Pinochet dictatorship, Chile has seen rapid growth and a steep fall in poverty, thanks to free-market policies. Income per person in Chile averages $19,000 at purchasing-power parity, not far from the levels of Portugal or Greece. Yet income inequality has remained wide. Four-fifths of Chilean workers earn less than $12,000 a year (at market exchange rates), according to Eduardo Engel at the University of Chile. And much social provision—schools, universities, health care and pensions—has to be paid for privately, at least in part.