A few weeks ago, we commented on the victory of conservative businessman, Sebastián Piñera, and his “Coalición del Cambio” or “Alliance for Change” in Chile’s recent presidential election. Now, many Guyanese might wonder about the exact relevance of political developments in the country that is farthest from us in South America, but we believe that there are aspects of the Chilean experience that may be instructive for the evolution of our own systems of governance.
Since his electoral victory, Mr Piñera, a Harvard PhD in economics and self-made billionaire, has named his cabinet and has raised the eyebrows of many in Chile, by choosing 22 ministers, mostly men, who share similar academic credentials and his entrepreneurial outlook. It would appear that the president-elect is intent on putting together a cabinet in his own image and that, as neither a natural politician nor party man, he wants a team of managers, chosen on the basis of ability rather than political ideology, who can implement the new government’s programmes. Indeed, only four ministers come from his own party and many of the others are independents, though tending more to the centre-right. In addition, he has selected a member of the defeated centre-left coalition known as “Concertación” to be Minister of Defence.
Mr Piñera’s near-inclusive approach is reminiscent of Gordon Brown’s attempt – albeit a failed one – to make of his first cabinet a ‘Ministry of All the Talents,’ incorporating conservatives and technocrats, ostensibly seeking to build a new, post-Blair, national consensus. Perhaps Barack Obama’s model is a better one. On paper though, Mr Piñera’s cabinet of mainly business people and academics would appear to be eminently qualified even if critics are already pointing out that it is elitist and lacking in diversity in that it does not faithfully reflect Chilean society, and there are not enough women.
Nevertheless, the new ministers are being hailed by more sympathetic observers as some of the best prepared for high office in Chile’s history. Certainly, many of them have outstanding academic qualifications, most having pursued post-graduate studies abroad, particularly in the USA, while others can boast impressive track records in engineering and business. Of course, being academically bright, running a successful business or having technocratic expertise is not enough to govern a country, and there are legitimate concerns regarding their ability to manage their ministerial portfolios according to academic theory or business models alone.
And, notwithstanding the academic excellence and business acumen of the new ministers, all very important in any cabinet to give a country’s citizens faith in the capacity of their decision-makers to make the right decisions, there are inevitably a few question marks over their political inexperience. It may well be advantageous that ministers might be able to make decisions without too much regard for political considerations that might cloud their better judgment, or without resorting to populist policies and stratagems, but they do need to have their finger on the pulse of popular opinion.
The public ambit is obviously very different from the private sector or the cloistered world of academia. More than possessing specialized knowledge, technical competence and managerial capability, members of a cabinet should also be endowed with the less tangible skills of being able to read the signals from the voting populace and of being capable of understanding what the people need, even as they direct their training and acquired knowledge to the greater good of the nation.
One of the challenges for Mr Piñera and his cabinet will therefore be to view the Chilean public as people and not just clients or even dependents. In other words, they must possess a certain sensitivity to the needs of the people in order to balance the pursuit of their strategic objectives with the wider buy-in of the people on whose behalf they profess to act. This is a fairly basic political principle actually and will be central to the long-term success of the centre-right coalition that ended 20 years of unbroken rule by Concertación.
Interestingly enough, inasmuch as the composition of Mr Piñera’s cabinet may well be a sign that he is attempting to forge a new post-Concertación national consensus, there is no doubt that the new president will continue with Concertación’s free market policies responsible for Chile’s continuous economic growth during the last two decades. It however remains to be seen whether he will continue with the social programmes which were a major complementary factor in reducing the poverty rate in Chile during this same period.
All indications so far are that Mr Piñera intends that he and his team be judged by their actions, and this is how it should be. As to whether or not they can deliver, only time and their performance will tell.
On balance, many of us in Guyana may be tempted, given our own experience since Independence, to believe that a technocratic cabinet is preferable to a purely or mostly political one. Indeed, there is a view in some quarters that in such a small country as ours, with a diminishing pool of talent and experience, ministers should be specialists who already know their assigned field, with a sound record of personal achievement behind them, prepared to serve in the public interest. But our constitutional peculiarities, the nature of our party politics and the list system, among other constraints, do not really allow for a technocratic cabinet. That should not however prevent us from keeping an eye on how Mr Piñera and his cabinet do in Chile.
