Chile, the Chileans and the paradox.

What happened in Chile? What happened to the Chileans? are recurring questions in Latin America, because for many Chile was in the right track in its way to economic development and institutional solidity. But today the Chileans themselves are disputing past achievements.
The word that best describes present day Chile is uncertainty. A new constitution is being discussed and the majority of the 155 constituents, elected to write a proposal, are for radical changes.
At the same time, general elections for President and Congress will take place in November 2021. The problem is that no one knows what their situation will be in a new constitution.
Chile seems to be moving away from liberal economic policies, despite good numbers. Taking as references 1990 and 2018 , the World Bank tells us that poverty was reduced from 39% to 8,6%; spending in education increased from 2,3 GDP (Gross Domestic Product) to 5,4 GDP while health spending went from 1,7 GDP (1990) to 4,9 GDP (2018) ; military spending went down from 3,4 GDP to 1,9 GDP while inflation went from 22% in 1990 to only 2% in 2018. Lastly, inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient decreased in income disparity and opportunities gap.
This is the Chilean paradox in which perceptions are different to facts. A narrative imposed itself against the evidence, according to which Chile had become a nation in which neoliberal policies had done (almost) nothing for the majority which was contrary to the fact that the more than one million had immigrated from other countries to Chile with little emigration, chiefly and mostly because the country offered opportunities.
A second fact is related to the increasing acceptance of violence as part of the political debate in democracy. A third one is the appearance of populism which rapidly got popular support for policies which had failed in other places, mostly among young voters.
This is another way to look to the paradox because this view of the country as a failed project, coincided in 2020 and 2021 with an international success in the fight against the CV-19 virus. According to Our World in Data, in August 26, 2021 the percentage of vaccinated population exceeded in Chile (69,47%, both doses) the numbers in developed countries like United States (51,19%) and Canada (65,92%) which can only be explained by past policies which today seem to be rejected.
Fourth, at the same time the political forces and the leaders who had governed since 1990 did not defend their achievements in democracy, probably embarrassed because some of the economic reforms had been started under a military and authoritarian regime. In other words, there was passivity in allowing the (false) narrative to shine against the real facts.
Fifth, political responsibility is first in the center-right government of Sebastián Piñera, not only for his failures, but also because he did not use his broad legal powers, unmatched by anyone else because the presidential characteristic of the state. More than that, there is still no explanation to the fact that he offered something that no one was requesting, not the reform of the constitution, but a new one, to be “drawn up on a blank sheet of paper” as it was publicly proclaimed.
Chile is today defined by uncertainty, in the midst of a perfect storm, a self-generated one.
Chile lacks today leaders capable of a dialogue in search of solutions, like those who were able to talk to each after the 1988 plebiscite, to reach basic political and economic agreements which gave the country some of the best decades of its history.
(*) Lawyer (University of Chile, University of Barcelona); Ph.D. in Political Science (Government, University of Essex); presidential candidate (Chile,2013)