MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Majority of Chileans, 83% support nationalizing copper, but it's not an issue of the presidential campaign

Copper remains as the main export item of Chile, the world's leading producer and exporter

In an annual poll released last month, 83% of Chileans voted positively when asked “Are you in favor or against the proposal to nationalize copper?” — registering overwhelming support for a prospective reform that, while radical, remains relatively low on the list of campaign hot topics the November 17 presidential election.

 This result published October in a Center for Public Studies (CEP) poll is more intriguing still, as neither election frontrunner and left-leaning Nueva Mayoría pact candidate Michelle Bachelet nor second placed Evelyn Matthei of the right-leaning Alianza coalition would deliver on the widely supported reform.

In contrast, both candidates are at odds over: free higher education for all — an election defining reform which Matthei rejects though was requested by 74% of those polled and promised by Bachelet within six years of her potential second stint in La Moneda; same sex marriage, supported by Bachelet and 36% of Chileans, giving the majority to Matthei who opposes the measure and legalization of therapeutic abortion, a reform the Nueva Mayoría candidate pledges to champion for the 63% of Chileans who polled in favor, but which Matthei is against in all cases.

Matthei’s opinion is that the nationalization of copper would be overtly expensive and would come at the expense of trade relations with foreign countries, while Bachelet is similarly opposed to reverting to the fully state-owned industry that preceded the part-privatized system devised under Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship.

For some of the nine presidential hopefuls however, re-nationalization is essential to their plans for the country. The Progressive Party’s (PRO) Marco Enríquez-Ominami would nationalize the industry, with the majority of subsequent funds to the state coffers used to fund widespread education reforms. Equality Party (PI) candidate Roxana Miranda used a copper pipe as a prop during a televised presidential debate to symbolize her support of nationalization and Marcel Claude was equally forceful during the debate in his backing of the reform.

“We will no longer tolerate multinational [corporations] stealing Chilean copper,” the Humanist Party (PH) candidate said.

In contrast, centrist candidate Ricardo Israel of the Regionalist Party of Independents (PRI) is vehemently opposed to the nationalization of copper, maintaining that such an action would be a “damaging form of populism.”

Instead, Israel proposes renegotiating contracts with private-mining companies to raise more money for the Chilean state.

Green Party (PEV) candidate Alfredo Sfeir and non-traditional conservative independent Franco Parisi are also opposed to nationalization, while independent Tomás Jocelyn-Holt does not address the issue in his presidential platform.

Gabriel Boric, former president the Student Federation of Universidad de Chile (FECH) and current candidate for deputy with the newly former Autonomous Left (IA) political movement was not surprised by the CEP poll result.

“The use of natural resources for the good of workers and the people of Chile has been an ongoing struggle in the history of our country,” he told The Santiago Times.

Boric said that it is “no wonder” that the majority of people are in favor re-nationalization, as there was never a referendum for the privatization of the copper industry.

According to Boric, the re-nationalization of copper is a “heartfelt demand” within Chile’s influential student movement, where the reform is seen as solution to free higher education funding. When Boric was a student leader, he joined protests at the Santiago headquarters of the transnational mining corporation Anglo American on July 11, the date that former President Salvador Allende signed into law the nationalization of the copper industry in 1971.

Those opposed to the re-nationalization of the copper industry express fear that nationalization would repel foreign investment, reduce employment and antagonize powerful countries which currently mine in Chile.

While acknowledging the social debate generated by the issues, the economic complexities innate to the re-nationalization of the industry move columnist and political scientist professor at the Universidad Diego Portales Patricio Navia to disregard the significance of the CEP result all together.

“People don’t know what it means or what it entails,” he told The Santiago Times. “If politicians gave serious consideration to that CEP question, then they would be campaigning on nationalizing copper.”

By Charlotte Duffield – The Santiago Times