The far right came to power in Chile due to the failure of what was supposed to be the most left-wing government since Allende, claims Daniel Jadue

In an exclusive interview, the leader comments on the crisis of Latin American leftists 'colonized by neoliberalism'.

Originally published on Brasil de Fato by Marco Fernandes
Republished with permission. You can read the second part of the interview here.

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On the 11th, Jose Antonio Kast, a far-right politician and supporter of Pinochet, took office as President of Chile, succeeding Gabriel Boric (2022–2026). Known as the “Chilean Bolsonaro,” Kast defeated the left-wing candidate, Jeannette Jara, bringing extremism back to the country’s government after 35 years. For Daniel Jadue, a member of the Communist Party of Chile and former mayor of the Recoleta district—the equivalent of a borough in Greater Santiago—the population “has grown tired of the lukewarm left, of left-wing movements colonized by neoliberalism” and is seeking alternatives to alleviate its suffering.

In an exclusive interview with Brasil de Fato, Jadue highlighted the failure of the Boric government and the return of the far right to power in Chile, analyzing the crisis facing Latin American left-wing movements, “colonized by neoliberalism,” and some of the challenges they face in the coming period. He also commented on his legal proceedings and his prospects for a return to political activism.

“Politics is not made solely within institutions. The most significant politics takes place outside them, and therefore I am back in politics. I am not part of the political establishment, but I am active every day, debating every day,” he commented.

Jadue has been one of the leading figures of the Chilean left for around a decade. His success as mayor of Recoleta for three terms, between 2021 and 2024, positioned him to run for the country’s presidency in 2021, for which he was the favorite in the polls. However, he lost the primary contest to the now former president Boric thanks to a peculiar Chilean electoral rule: when a party—or a coalition—calls for primary elections, they are open to all voters in the country. Consequently, fearing Jadue’s candidacy, the Chilean right mobilized to vote for Boric, thereby choosing a candidate against whom it calculated it had a better chance of winning the election and who, ultimately, posed less of a threat to the Chilean establishment—a prediction that, unfortunately, proved accurate.

Precisely because of his political success, Jadue became yet another target on the long list of Latin American left-wing or center-left politicians persecuted by lawfare (the use of the judiciary as a tool for political persecution). He did not complete his third term in Recoleta and spent three months in custody and 18 months under house arrest, which was suspended on 27 February, when he returned to the streets. He faces charges relating to alleged misuse of state funds from the municipal “Farmácia Popular” program during the Covid-19 pandemic. As he told Brasil de Fato, “The lawyers who initiated the proceedings are in prison for judicial corruption. The whole of Chile knows today that those who set me up bribed prosecutors, judges, and court rulings and paid witnesses. And they are the same people.”

Before becoming a member of the Communist Party, Jadue—whose grandparents immigrated from Palestine to Chile in the first half of the last century—was an activist with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) for around 15 years, from the age of 11. He began in the General Union of Palestinian Students (1978), which he led between 1987 and 1991; he was coordinator of the Palestinian Youth Organization in Latin America and the Caribbean and, finally, vice-president of the Palestinian Federation of Chile. He left the organization shortly after the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 and joined the Communist Party.

Brasil de Fato had a long conversation with Jadue, which will be published in two parts. You can read the first part below; in the second, we discuss the US and Israeli war against Iran, how Palestinians view this conflict in their region, and what consequences it may have for the BRICS.

Brasil de Fato: Let us begin with Chile. Last week (11th), José Antonio Kast, a far-right, Pinochetist politician—whose father was a member of the German Nazi Party and whose brother, Miguel Kast, was one of the central figures in the Pinochet government—took office as president. This comes at a time when Latin America seems to be experiencing a new wave of elections for right-wing politicians. How do you assess this moment?

Daniel Jadue: Look, before the far right came to power in Chile, when a government ended and failed to pass the presidential sash on to someone from the same political camp, that was considered a failure. Therefore, we must be very aware that the far right came to power in Chile due to the failure of what was supposed to be the most left-wing government since Allende. And, consequently, it is not that the continent or its people are moving to the right. The people of the continent have grown tired of the lukewarm left, tired of left-wing movements colonized by neoliberalism. What they want are solutions to their problems and their suffering. And we must recognize that, over the last 40 years, the moderate left has governed much of the continent and has solved nothing. So, one might ask: why should they continue to support us? That is the question we must ask ourselves. I come from a different, micro, absolutely insignificant experience: Recoleta. After 12 years in government, they kept voting for us, and we even secured 65% of the vote for the Communist Party in the second re-election. And why didn’t they tire of us? Because we didn’t give in, we didn’t resign ourselves to our fate; we didn’t just endure the pain, but dedicated ourselves to tearing down the wall and transforming the institutions.

So, this whole story that ‘the continent is moving to the right’ is the excuse the left uses when it fails to do its job. It is the excuse the left uses when it disappears from the territory. It is the excuse the left uses when it goes to occupy ministries, parliaments, and government palaces and starts living in the very way it used to criticize. It’s not that people are turning to the right; people are rejecting those who betray them. And so, as there is nowhere else to go, they have no choice but to turn to those who are not in power. And that is why this becomes the politics of the pendulum, isn’t it?

I, for example, could say—and no one could doubt this within the bounds of bourgeois liberal democracy—that Lula did an excellent job as president. So I don’t understand. We should ask, why are they so afraid that Bolsonaro might win? Let’s see, what are we missing then? The struggle for meaning at the basis, taking to the streets to convince people, working in an organized way with the people, as when we developed participatory budgeting with the PT and were a force to be reckoned with in local government. But it seems that, after we came to power in the federal government, we forgot about social organizations and local governments and started forming alliances to survive the power quotas that democracy forces us to have. Because it doesn’t make sense, does it? I have absolutely no doubt which side I’m on, do I? I mean, none at all in Brazil. But what I cannot understand is why, with everything that has been done, there is still even a shred of doubt that we should win comfortably in the first round. That certainty is missing, and I simply cannot understand it.

So, the question we need to ask ourselves is: why, in these circumstances, with the lowest unemployment rate in history, the lowest hunger rate in history, the highest investment in history, and with everything that has been achieved, do we have this uncertainty? We need to ask ourselves this question. And there is only one answer to that. The gulf between us and the people is brutal. Without a doubt. How did we lose the battle against the evangelical church? It’s brutal. Why are they doing today the work we used to do 50 years ago and stopped doing? They fight against addiction, and today we promote it. Today they visit prisoners, and we want to lock everyone up. Today they welcome immigrants, and we want to expel them from our borders because we are incapable of instilling class consciousness in the working class, and we allow hatred to be directed sideways rather than upwards. How long will this go on? You can’t complain that the right isn’t doing its job. Because they do what they need to do to stay in power and control public opinion, as they do today through technology. It was us who walked away. The city is still there, living through the same shit and suffering the same things. The problem is that we’re no longer there.

What explains the overwhelming failure of Boric’s government, which was expected to be the most radical since Allende?

The abandonment of the program. Nothing more. Resignation. But let me give you some concrete examples: former President Boric and the former Minister and Secretary-General of the Government, our colleague Camila Vallejo, were the leaders of the fight against the TPP-11, the Trans-Pacific Partnership. And no government, not even the right-wing, dared to approve it. They themselves approved it. Our two comrades were the leaders of the fight against the militarization of Araucanía [the territory of the Mapuche people]. And we spent four years with Araucanía, with Gualmapu, militarized. They strongly opposed the criminalization of protests. And during their government, the most repressive laws in our history since the dictatorship were passed. And I could go on. They promised to abolish the AFP pension system [Pension Fund Administrators, the Chilean social security system], but ended up returning all the money we had raised during the pandemic and bolstering the capital markets, which was precisely what we needed to transform. So, when you look, for example, at the case of President [Boric], everyone remembers when he said to Piñera, pointing his finger at him, “We’re going to put you on trial.” And today they’re releasing and letting all human rights violators go unpunished. But the worst thing is that they end up handing the government over to the far-right of the Pinochet era. If I were to apply the same criteria they used before when analyzing governments that ended up handing power over to the opposition, they would have to acknowledge the failure. And they would spend a long time trying to fix things, trying to disguise that failure as a success. But today (the 13th) a government report on inequality in Chile was released. You see, the situation is far worse than what we were told for so long. The figures are staggering. Fifty percent of Chileans have nothing; they owe more than they own. And 1% hold more than 80% of the wealth, 19% of the income, and 50% of the assets. And, obviously, the people aren’t going to vote for the left. And it seems that, when the left does well—and this has been happening for perhaps more than a decade on our continent, in our region—the right also finds ways to penalize, punish, and persecute the successful left.

We are at a point where the empire, with all its weaknesses, is opting for a highly aggressive strategy of invasions, presidential kidnappings, the assassination of heads of state, and so on. In the case of Brazil, for example, Washington is signaling its intention to declare the PCC and the Comando Vermelho as terrorist organizations, thereby opening the door to a possible attack on Brazil. The Paraguayan Senate has just approved the establishment of US bases on its territory, and Ecuador may soon do the same. It is therefore a worrying scenario of imperialist advance in the region. Do you think the experience in Iran has something to teach the countries of the Global South about how to confront imperialism going forward?

I won’t speak about the countries of the region; I’ll speak about the left in the region. Because the countries represent a range of different positions, and I believe the left does not need to look to Iran to learn. We must turn to classic texts and read Rosa Luxemburg’s The Accumulation of Capital, where she explains that capital is compelled to devour any space not subject to its rules and logic. So much so that today, to maintain its rate of profit, capital must devour Gaza; it must devour Cuba, which possesses no resources and poses no threat to anyone. Throughout the history of the revolution, Cuba has offered nothing but solidarity, love, and fraternity, yet even this troubles capital, because solidarity and fraternity are opposed to the logic of capital. Therefore, we do not need to resort to war in Iran to learn that, from now on, no people can save themselves alone and that the problem lies not with the empire, but with transnational capital. It is not the United States, and it is not Trump. Trump is a tool, a fuse for BlackRock and all those corporations that stand above nation-states and above the laws of every country. Therefore, the solution to all these conflicts necessarily involves overcoming capitalism and the left reclaiming the horizon of social transformation and the construction of socialism. The problem is that the left has ended up speaking the language of the empire and, today, governs by speaking of social dialogue, governance, the defense of the rule of law, and the defense of the Constitution. The left has become the vanguard of the defense of bourgeois institutions, whilst the right and the bourgeoisie have dismantled the rule of law. Therefore, we must reclaim our own language and our own strategy and return to the basis, working with the people, for this is the only unity that will allow us to resolve this issue.

Now, once this fundamental issue is resolved, yes, Iran may be able to teach us something. What does Iran teach us? That we need to learn to fight asymmetric battles. You see, it is the same thing that Vietnam taught us, the same thing that Korea taught us, and the same thing that the Palestinians taught us in the Battle of Karam in 1968. These are guerrilla wars; these are wars of attrition; these will be battles fought on the ground with our militants rooted among the people, because the final space that capital appropriates is subjectivity, which today it transforms into data. Today, through algorithms and mobile phones, we are monitored all day long. Furthermore, we are controlled and subjected to synaptic atrophy, which reduces our capacity for thought. I have just written a very interesting book on this subject, Loving Big Brother: Orwell and the Mutation of Control, which is fascinating because of the synaptic atrophy being inflicted on the younger generations. When words such as “revolution,” “class struggle,” and “exploitation” are erased from language, when there are no words left to name the pain and the way out of it, we cease to imagine what is possible. In other words, when the word “revolution” disappears from language, the possibility of rebellion ceases to be imaginable. Therefore, the left must learn that it has a fundamental task: to rescue the historical project of building socialism if we are to tackle the current situation. For example, the defense of Cuba is extremely important today for the entire global left. The defense of Venezuela, the defense of alternative projects in the Sahel—in other words, today we must begin to look beyond these regional borders. Today, of course, we speak of regional integration, but even regional integration is insufficient for the times to come, because we will have to face the greatest concentration of power and resources in human history.

You were effectively imprisoned for almost two years—between prison and your home—in yet another typical case of Latin American “lawfare”, which has affected so many leaders in the region in recent years, including President Lula. What was the charge against you, and what is the current status of the case? What are the prospects for the next stage of the case?

Well, the case is still ongoing. Today, the abusive precautionary measures imposed on me to exclude me from the election have been eased. Just today, the American Association of Jurists denounced this legal maneuver as a violation of political and democratic rights at the United Nations, because I was excluded from the election and from politics through an administrative process in which the Public Prosecutor’s Office placed itself above every other institution. And, of course, the precautionary measures have now been relaxed because there will be no elections for the next two years, but the proceedings continue. And the case, of course, is weaker these days. The lawyers who initiated the proceedings are in prison for judicial corruption. The whole of Chile knows today that those who plotted against me bribed prosecutors, bribed judges, bribed verdicts, and paid witnesses. And it is the same people. It is legitimate to ask why anyone would think they did this in all the other cases, except mine, right? Furthermore, Zionism, which governs Chile today, is behind this. And the right wing is involved and was part of the previous government, of course. Therefore, there is an ongoing process that will continue. I am very calm because I have nothing to hide.

In fact, no one has even dared to accuse me of withholding a single peso or of diverting a single peso to political campaigns. I am accused of making decisions during the pandemic that may have caused losses to the state. There were other judges, other similar trials during that period, and all the defendants were acquitted because, during the pandemic, we all made hasty decisions, when there was no way to protect people, when people were dying in our neighborhoods. And it wasn’t just the government; many companies went bankrupt and lost money trying to guarantee a legal right that is far more important than the efficiency of public spending, which is the right to life, which, I repeat, was not available in any way—there were no medicines, no vaccines, nothing. The only way to protect people was by washing hands, buying masks, and practicing social distancing. So, when are you put on trial for buying masks, or for buying blood glucose monitors that are readily available to the public, or for buying hearing aids that are also readily available to the public? And why did they drive an association of municipalities into bankruptcy, claiming they weren’t interested in the money and that they wanted to undermine presidential candidate Daniel Jadue? It’s written in an email, but the prosecution dismissed all the evidence and fabricated something that led to the very prosecutor who initiated this case being investigated for misconduct, for pressuring witnesses to lie and incriminate me. Witnesses who admitted to having done so in interviews with major media outlets. So, I think we have to wait. I hope this ends as soon as possible. They have already prevented us from gathering evidence during the investigation, so we are also facing a disparity in resources when trying to gather the evidence we need, but they have no evidence against me. The problem is that, at this stage of the process, no one needs evidence to disqualify you from a political career.

And your future—when will you return to politics?

Look, I always say, that’s something the people decide. What I’m sure of is that politics isn’t just conducted within institutions. The most relevant politics happens outside those institutions, and so I’m back in politics. I’m not part of the political establishment, but I’m active every day, debating every day. I have a weekly program broadcast online that all journalists watch. And whenever I speak, they repeat what I say, and it is discussed. So, in one way or another, people are also expecting this. But today I am already touring the metropolitan area and reconnecting with the people who helped me become a presidential pre-candidate in 2021. And the commitment, the affection, and the desire for change remain intact. And when you look at Chile’s recent history and the popular uprising of 18 October 2019, you realize that all the demands that emerged during that uprising remain unchanged. Not a single issue has been resolved. And after the 80% who decided to change Pinochet’s Constitution, the fact that we are still using Pinochet’s Constitution is a disgrace. Therefore, we must insist once again on constitutional change. We must insist, once again, on deepening and strengthening democracy with institutions that are always imbued with the spirit of the citizens and the people of Chile. And these are pending tasks that I could never abandon. Until victory.

How are you? What is it like to be free again, free as a bird?

Well, there is a little more freedom now, but the persecution is still very intense. But being able to return to the streets is very rewarding, mainly because of the great affection people show me. That surprised me quite a lot. Two years off the streets and, on my return, I found the same warmth as ever, and people are very aware of this deeply troubling persecution and very calm about what lies ahead. I mean, nobody has much faith in the Chilean judicial system. There’s no reason to trust it. But the case is falling apart, especially with the arrest of the men who set the whole thing up, because they’re part of the biggest judicial corruption scandal in Chile’s history.

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