President Boric’s decision on the 30th of  December 2022 to use his presidential pardon on 12 inmates arrested during the social protests of 2019, and on Jorge Mateluna, a former FPMR (a dictatorship-era rebel group) imprisoned for bank robbery, unleashed a political storm, including the strong reprimands from the Supreme Court and the General Prosecutor, after Boric  commented that he believed Mateluna to be innocent and that his trial had “irregularities”, something that had been dismissed in previous trials.

After a difficult 2022, the Boric government had earned some breathing space after political forces agreed on a renewed constitutional process after the rejection of a new constitution draft on the 4th of  September, even after the two failures to appoint a General Prosecutor in the Senate. However, the questionable momentum to use his presidential pardon renewed tensions between the government and the opposition-controlled Congress that started an impeachment process against the Social Development Minister, Giorgio Jackson(one of Boric’s closest advisors and friends), accusing him of neglecting his duties and enforcing laws, as well as abusing his authority due to his closeness to the President. The opposition also announced an impeachment to be presented next week against the Justice Minister, Marcela Rios, on the basis of irregularities on the pardons given by Boric. Far-right Republicanos and other opposition congress members have requested a report to study an impeachment against the President himself.

The pardon has been read as Boric’s attempt to throw a bone to his hardest base of supporters, but with little positive effect on the general population or the standing of his government. The move also pushed the right to leave the roundtable discussing a wide agreement on security issues, which left Interior Minister Carolina Toha in a disadvantageous position.

Thinking of the coming weeks in Chile:

• It is likely that the opposition (and even some inside the government) will use this as an excuse to cause severe damage to the government and the leftist Apruebo Dignidad coalition, further weakening the President’s political influence as Chile moves into a key year for discussing social and tax reforms in Congress, as well as carrying the constitutional process to a satisfactory end.  It is worth noting that this highlights  another example of the government’s lack of political proficiency and experience as it chooses to defend unpopular positions without a strategy for possible consequences. 

• There’s a risk that if the ministerial impeachments are successful the government will be left in a lame duck position forcing them to move further away from its original programme, as it grows increasingly unpopular, closing 2022 with a 36% approval, the lowest of any President on its first year since the return of democracy in 1990 . An initial sign of this has been Boric naming a candidate promoted by the right for its third try to appoint a General Prosecutor.

• If the government and the President are destabilised further, it  is likely that the left could suffer a significant defeat in the May elections for the new constitutional process.  More worrying are the attempts from the far right Republicans to go after the President himself, as they clearly intend to completely derail social reforms and the constitutional reform and bring the Boric government to an early end.