"In Chile, the popular left-wing sectors gained a foothold in the institutions."

Following the municipal and regional elections in Chile, Miguel Urrutia, a member of the CLACSO Steering Committee, spoke with CLACSO.tv.

The PhD in Sociology analyzed the election results in relation to the Chilean social uprising of 2019: “The underlying discourse here, which is widespread, is that this whole scenario invalidates the possibilities and demands that opened up in October 2019. That which has been pejoratively called 'Octoberism' by Chilean forces. And from that point of view, regarding whether these elections are the death knell for that movement, I can say categorically no.”

“The most populous municipality in the country, the one with the largest population, which had been in the hands of the Chilean right for around 50 years, thanks to a very special, well-planned and executed populist effort, has just passed into the hands of a popular left-wing figure, Matías Toledo, completely identified with the demands of the October 2019 movements. On the other hand, many of the municipalities that were won in the same way he won today have remained in power. Some might say that in those municipalities the same mayors were re-elected with a pact closer to the government, and that is indeed the case. But that doesn't imply a break with the major October movements either. Because if October 2019 had anything new, it was that it had an institutional reach that wasn't limited solely to the demand for a new constitution, but extended to this exercise of territorial power. We had a very traditional, marginal left, very successful in organizing the popular movement, with a presence, a long history of work, and recognition, but one that deeply distrusted institutions. The October uprising of 2019 saw that left wing make a very precise first institutional commitment. "We cannot immediately commit to the major structures of national politics, nor will we fully commit to the constituent process, but we will try to gain a foothold at the grassroots level of the political system," he argued.

In this regard, he added that “if we have to consider the hypothesis that the entire commitment of the sectors that rose up socially in October 2019 has already been displaced and discredited, already processed by Chilean society as pure anomic violence, as something undesirable, we would say that it is absolutely refuted by today's results. Given that the popular left-wing sectors gained a foothold in this territorial institutional space, they have maintained that foothold.”

Interviewed by Gustavo Lema.