After former senator Isabel Allende was tossed out of the Senate here, her Socialist party appears to be at least momentarily in a shambles.
In a report in La Tercera, pissy Allende seems to be pouting to the point that she says she might leave the PS altogether. This would be some kind of problem? Very rough translation of the story …
Socialist Party (PS) in complete chaos
Isabel Allende, daughter of the former “maximum leader of Chilean socialism,” is fuming. So much so, that some socialists fear that the former senator could leave the party. Allende has indicated she is thinking over resigning from the party right in the middle of the mess surrounding who will be her replacement in the Senate now that she, Allende, has been removed.
Allende has evidently told her close friends that the party leadership, headed by Paulina Vodanovic, has “revictimized” her in the most complex moment of her political career: being dismissed from the Senate as a result of the failed sale of her father’s house, Salvador Allende.
Allende, who had been due to step down later this year, had already proposed her niece, Maya Fernández, as PS senatorial candidate for Valparaiso.
This was criticized by others in her party as being akin to a hereditary monarchy.
But that came to nothing after Fernández was sacked by Boric when her involvement in the botched illegal purchase of the Allende house came to light.
Then Allende proposed another of her compinches, the diputado Tomás de Rementería. But the Party decided against his candidacy, and that’s what has miffed Allende.
The reason de Rementería was not considered was that he is married to the commie Karol Cariola, who also intends to stand as Senatorial candidate for Valparaiso. Given the political discredit the Allende family casa affair has caused the PS, they are steering clear of allowing yet another family-type conflict-of-interest issue to arise.
What’s this got to do with the rest of Chile? Nothing at all, but it shows what these people’s true priorities are, and how closely interlinked they all are.
Actually, far from “nothing at all” it does have an impact on that third or so of the population here that wavers between the left and right candidates. Having the Allende name out of the senate is a small but useful victory for the opposition. Senator Allende was one of the most prominent names and symbols for the PS and her being dismissed for cause, for unlawful activity, has besmirched the Allende dynasty. In doing so this has harmed that party, and implicitly, given advantage to opposing candidates who can use this as a minor, short-term weapon against the PS and its coalitions.
Observing the PS wallowing in their own mud might not be a decisive factor for many voters, but it does chink their armor, since the party has often had the highest standing of all them.Not that any of the parties is worth a pile of porotos.
Agreed!
But despite many years of polls showing that congress is the lowest-rated of the public institutions, there seems little public enthusiasm for the type of root-and-branch overhaul the country needs.
Even just reducing the public-sector mega-salaries (including the proposed but never implemented parliamentary pay cuts) would help reduce the present unhealthy interest in politics, which is attracting more and more of the unscrupulous, drawn to the only legal source of easy money now available.
And the illegal oportunities for personal gain these positions bring, the recent fundaciones scandal being just the tip of the iceberg.
What the country needs, if not a few well oiled guillotines, would be the sort of chainsaw reform applications of the sort symbolized (and undertaken) by Milei next door.
Of course such a schism could only come in the form of a major coup of the sort seen in 1973, and that just isn’t in the cards.
The somnolent population here has neither the stomach nor the cranium for meaningful reform, nor the desire to rise above its fourth-rate, pedestrian, pisco-fueled Third World status, not reaching for substantial improvement but instead, in its elections, habitually chosing between more-failure or less-failure.
For completeness, it looks like the ex-senator and Queen of the PS who, despite the damage she caused to the Socialist Party’s reputation, has finally prevailed in the matter of her successor.
Unlike a football match, where if an infractor is sent off, the team continues with less players, the errant Senator was replaced by the compinche she had proposed for the job.
