Las elecciones en Chile del 19 de noviembre produjeron una serie de resultados significativos. El candidato de la derecha no sacó el resultado que esperaba, pero sobretodo presenciamos la irrupción en el panorama político nacional del Frente Amplio, cuya candidata logró un sorpresivo 20%. Con sus limitaciones políticas y de su propia composición, el Frente Amplio expresa los deseos de cambios radicales de un significativo sector de la sociedad que se ha movilizado en las calles en los últimos años.

After 43 days of striking at the world's largest copper mine, Minera Escondida in Chile, the workers have decided to return to work by accepting an extension of the current contract. This means the workers maintain all the conditions and benefits that the company wanted to destroy.

46 years ago during Salvador Allende’s government, the Chilean Congress voted unanimously for the nationalization of Chilean copper. During the murderous Pinochet dictatorship, the road was open for foreign investment, which in actuality takes more than two thirds of the benefits produced by the exploitation of this resource and those who work it. Nevertheless, what is left over, still constitutes 13% of Chile’s GDP, and has been called ‘the salary of Chile’. While the state company CODELCO is the largest producer of mine copper in the world, the surface mine with the largest copper production in the world is Minera Escondida, controlled by BHP Billiton.

With 3.4 million votes – 62.16% of the votes cast but only 25.6% of the electorate – Michelle Bachelet has been re-elected for a second term as the President of Chile, an office that she held from 2006 to 2010. Her victory was mainly due to the massive mobilisations that had taken place during the period of the Pinera government as was shown by the election of ex student leaders as MPs – Camila Vallejo and Karol Cariola of the Communist Party, Giorgio Jackson of Democratic Revolution and Gabriel Boric of Autonomous Left.

This article deals with the presidential primaries and the general situation of the workers’ and youth movement and the electoral policies and alliances of the left parties. It provides useful background analysis to the first round of the presidential elections which took place yesterday. It was published in July in issue 8 of America Socialista.

For the last 10 weeks the capitalist media has been whipped into a frenzy by the story of 33 trapped miners in the San Jose Copiapó copper and gold mine in Chile. Though the event has been widely covered, it has not been much reported on, but rather, it has been turned into a narrative that leaves an increasingly unoriginal Hollywood salivating with eyeball dollar signs. The television reporting, as the miners were being rescued, was nothing less than abysmal.

The huge earthquake that struck Chile back in February has revealed all the negative consequences of decades of deregulation and privatisation, as the people come to the terms with shoddy building methods and lack of services to deal with such a catastrophe. Privatisation literally kills!

The death of Pinochet sparked off celebrations in Chile and around the world. He was a hated figure, a living example of the real nature of capitalism. He died without being brought to justice. But his was merely the fate of one man. The task is to make sure that the system that created Pinochet is buried once and for all. That task lies ahead of us.

Today is the 30^th anniversary of the coup staged by Pinochet against the elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende. This anniversary has been overshadowed in the last couple of years by the dramatic events that took place at the World Trade Center in New York in 2001. The same date falls on a tragic day for the Chilean proletariat, full of lessons to be learnt.