Chile's crisis is not over yet

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A sense of fatigue hangs over Santiago, the capital of Chile. Since 2019 the place once considered the poster child of Latin America has instead been the site of tumult. This has included the election of Gabriel Boric, the country's most left-wing president in half a century, along with the growth of a powerful party of the hard-right. There have been two failed attempts to write a new constitution. To top it all, this month deadly forest fires have raged. Can Chile get back on track?

For a quarter of a century after the end of the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet in 1990, the country had moderate, consensual politics and faster economic growth than much of Latin America. Those living below the official poverty line fell from 45% of the population in the mid-1980s to 9% in 2017. By that year two-thirds of Chileans were middle class, up from 24% two decades before, according to the World Bank. With its vigorous market economy and a commitment to the rule of law, Chile was one of the few countries in the region that looked likely to reach developed status within a generation.

This article appeared in the The Americas section of the print edition under the headline "From model to muddle"

From the February 17th 2024 edition

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