The tone is calm, educational, jovial on occasion. In the media and in Parliament, Chilean Labor Minister Jeannette Jara, 49, defends her measures. “It is necessary to reach agreements, and this is my task”she exposes to the World, Friday May 5, in her office in the center of Santiago from where she carries out the most successful reforms of the government of President Gabriel Boric (left). Public opinion is grateful to him. The former union leader, ex-president of a student organization and member of the Communist Party, is among the government’s highest-rated ministers, even as the president has been roughed up in opinion polls almost since he came to power. in March 2022; and that the far right is taking center stage, as shown by the elections to the Constitutional Council on 7 May.
The very conservative Republican Party came out on top in this election and has already announced that it intends to preserve the concept of the subsidiary state in the future Constitution, intervening only as a last resort – after the private sector –, center of the current text, inherited from the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990). Gabriel Boric’s major social reform projects, already largely amputated or tempered, will therefore continue to be carried out in an unfavorable climate, with a Parliament without a majority and a galvanized extreme right. Jeannette Jara is currently defending before the deputies a new revaluation of the minimum wage. She would like to raise it to 500,000 pesos (575 euros) in July 2024, against 410,000 currently, and 350,000 pesos when Gabriel Boric comes to power.
It was the first upgrade that opened the doors of the small presidential circle to Jeannette Jara. The “political committee of the government”, currently composed of six ministers, meets weekly with the president. She works closely with Mario Marcel, the Minister of Finance. Doubts existed about the compatibility of this duo, because of the differences between the communists and the center left, from which Mario Marcel came. But Jeannette Jara “has demonstrated the ability to build big, sometimes improbable deals that are what our country needs right now”, complimented Gabriel Boric. A capacity hailed even in the opposition.
Greatest social achievement of the government
The Minister’s most difficult project is the reform of the pension system. “That’s what Boric’s record will be played out on. It is also about the great demand of the social revolt of 2019 and the promise of the government”, observes Rolando Alvarez Vallejos, historian at the University of Santiago de Chile, specialist in the Communist Party. An overhaul had already been attempted, in vain, by the last two presidents, Michelle Bachelet (centre left, 2006-2010 then 2014-2018) and Sebastian Piñera (right, 2010-2014 then 2018-2022).
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