The student protests in Chile began in 2006, when secondary school students launched a movement dubbed the Penguin Revolution, which sought to repeal the Organic Constitutional Law of Teaching. The law, which was instituted under Pinochet, decentralized education and relaxed standards for government funding, resulting in a proliferation of low-quality, for-profit institutions. Former President Michelle Bachelet attempted to resolve the issue by replacing the law with the General Education Law in 2009, but occasional demonstrations have continued with varying degrees of intensity.
The Pinera government has reached some compromises with the students, but negotiations have stalled on issues concerning free public education and profit in educational institutions. For the government, meeting protesters' demands would require higher expenditures to subsidize tuitions and necessitate a significant compromise in Santiago's understanding of profit in the education system. While it is illegal for state-subsidized education institutions to turn a profit, the government has ignored the use of legal loopholes by schools to skirt the ban. The left would likely comply with protesters' demands for increased vigilance in enforcing the law, but Pinera and the right have indicated their desire to legalize school profits.
As the 2013 presidential election approaches, the ongoing protests will likely become more explicitly drawn along partisan lines. The Concertacion coalition and independent leftist candidates will likely unify support behind the protesters, while the center-right will likely continue to oppose the protesters' agenda. The proposed Law for the Protection of Public Order, known as the Hinzpeter Law, is evidence of how the political division will likely unfold. The bill would criminalize unauthorized public protests with a maximum incarceration time of three years for violators. Supporters argue that the bill would discourage the violence and vandalism that have accompanied some of the demonstrations, while critics have called it an attack on legitimate public expression.
The potential candidacy of former President Bachelet — who left office in 2010 with an approval rating above 80 percent — and the Concertacion primaries will be important to watch. According to a recent poll by the La Segunda newspaper, if Bachelet does not run for president, the Concertacion would split evenly between candidates Ricardo Lagos Weber, Andres Velasco and Claudio Orrego. The lack of a clear front-runner would create an opening for leftist candidates such as Marco Enriquez-Ominami, who was barred from the primaries in the 2009 election but gained 20 percent of the vote as an independent, paving the way for the right's victory. In 2013, the Concertacion might pivot to the left to co-opt such candidates rather than risk a repeat of 2009. Alternatively, if Bachelet decides to run, she could garner enough support to prevent the emergence of a credible independent and a shift to the left by the Concertacion.
Even if the center-left wins the presidency, several economic constraints will limit the breadth of its policies. For example, while the Bachelet administration agreed to dismantle Pinochet’s education law in 2006, fiscal pressures prevented the regime from granting free bus passes and free entrance examinations. For the right, the impasse in negotiations has hitherto been ideological as well as budgetary; for the left, challenges in quelling public protests would be budgetary, despite its more accommodating political position.
The election of Pinera was a vote for change and a vote against the Concertacion. With Pinera's conservative agenda under attack, Chile is now faced with a choice: return to the same coalition whose policies led to the victory of Pinera's Alliance for Chile coalition or seek an alternative. In this environment, an opportunity exists for a leftist candidate to make gains, build the left and attempt to provide voters with such an alternative. Fearing a disintegration of its coalition and its diminishing salience, the Concertacion likely will pivot to the left. The political awakening of the student movement in Chile may not fully achieve its lofty goals of universal free and quality education, but it has already succeeded in changing the conversation in Chile, with potentially significant implications for upcoming elections.
