Sebastián Piñera
| Sebastián Piñera Echenique | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| |||
 From: March 11, 2018 – March 11, 2022 | |||
| Predecessor | Michelle Bachelet | ||
| Successor | Gabriel Boric | ||
| President of Chile From: March 11, 2010 – March 11, 2014 | |||
| Predecessor | Michelle Bachelet | ||
| Successor | Michelle Bachelet | ||
| President pro tempore of the Forum for the Progress and Development of South America From: 22 March 2019 | |||
| Predecessor | Position established | ||
| Successor | Incumbent (no successor) | ||
| President pro tempore of the Pacific Alliance From: 5 March 2012 – 22 May 2013 | |||
| Predecessor | Position established | ||
| Successor | Enrique Peña Nieto | ||
| Leader of National Renewal From: 26 May 2001 – 10 March 2004 | |||
| Predecessor | Alberto Cardemil | ||
| Successor | Sergio Díez | ||
| Senator for Eastern Santiago From: 11 March 1990 – 11 March 1998 | |||
| Predecessor | Position established | ||
| Successor | Carlos Bombal | ||
| Information | |||
| Party | Independent (since 2010)
National Renewal (1989–2010) | ||
| Spouse(s) | Cecilia Morel | ||
| Religion | Catholic | ||
Miguel Juan Sebastián Piñera Echenique (born December 1, 1949) is a Chilean politician and businessman who previously served as President from March 11, 2010,[1] to March 11, 2014, and then again from March 11, 2018 to March 11, 2022.
Piñera sided with the Left on certain issues, such as discussing with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about "gender" policies and how to advance the homosexual agenda.[2] Pinera supported Chile's anti-abortion laws, which outlaw the practice in all circumstances. In 2021 he supported the legalization of same sex "marriage". He believes in the anthropocentric climate change hoax and implemented heavy COVID restrictions such as the COVID Vaccine Passport (Pase de movilidad). Piñera betrayed Pinochetists and the military.
He studied economy in the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and in Harvard.
In 2009 he was convicted for the crime of buying shares with privileged information.
Contents
Background
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Sebastián in the 80's was a Christian Democrat and as such had worked for Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle's candidacy, which did not prosper due to Patricio Aylwin's cunning. In 1989, Andrés Allamand, who had always run for the Christian Democracy, had the strange idea of taking Piñera to the command of Hernán Büchi, Minister of Finance, who was leading the presidential polls. But that literally "blew it" and the candidate resigned, alleging a "vital contradiction". There are no two more different people in the world than Hernán Büchi and Sebastián Piñera.
In August 27, 1982, an arrest warrant was issued by the investigating minister Luis Correa Bulo to the Prefecture of Investigations, against Miguel Juan Sebastián Piñera Echenique for crimes under banking legislation and for defrauding the Bank of Talca, for which he worked.
"14th Criminal Court of Santiago. Santiago, August twenty-seventh, 1982. Luis Correa Bulo, visiting minister in this 14th Criminal Court of Santiago, in case 99.971-6 has decreed the apprehension by the Prefecture of Investigations of Santiago of Miguel Juan Sebastián Piñera Echenique (...) for the crime of infringement of articles 25 and 26 of the General Law of Banks and defrauding the Bank of Talca".
The order was not complied with because the subject remained at large. Mónica Madariaga, Minister of Justice in the Military Government, stating that she received a request from minister José Piñera, his brother, to intercede with Piñera's investigator to prevent him from being arrested. She adds that years later they met on a plane and he thanked her for having kept him out of jail. He even owes that debt to the military government, which he later betrayed.
Piñera was a 28-day prisoner on the run and was later acquitted by the Supreme Court.[3]
Finally the Supreme Court accepted an appeal in his favor and he was freed from jail, but, according to researcher Carlos Tromben, author of "Crónica Secreta de la Economía Chilena", although the arrest warrant was left without effect, "as confirmed by a note that appeared in 'El Mercurio', the ruling was actually negative for Piñera and Massad".
Gonzalo Townsend Pinochet explains that Mónica Madarriaga didn't interceed in favor or Piñera, but asked that the businessman's case be expedited. "She never intervened for better or worse in favor of anyone. She is an honest, suitable and clear woman, her clarity is of a transparency that anyone would want and I think she deserves all the respect and not the rude way she is being referred to".[3]
He lended money to companies in which he was a partner, to buy shares in the same bank. That is why its main controller once declared to the press: "What that boy wanted was to keep the bank for himself".[4]
Then Piñera presented himself as a candidate for senator for Santiago on a list with a real conservative, Hermógenes Pérez de Arce, and he had the opportunity to get to know him well and be completely frightened. Jaime Guzmán told Hermógenes: "You have to beat him, because he is pernicious and in the Senate he will be fatal for Pinochet and the Junta". Piñera won and was pernicious. On one occasion he contributed the decisive vote to remove a Supreme Court minister, constitutionally accused by the left for applying the amnesty, a law in force. He wanted to hide the black ballot when voting, but his fingers were too short and it came out in the photo.
Piñera believed that raising taxes gave him votes and was useful to do good business, as when he bought the LAN Airlines shares held by CORFO, under Aylwin's government, during the "policy of agreements". In exchange for the facilities that allowed him to buy, although officially he said he did it to "legitimize the model", he supported with the votes of the party National Renewal, Aylwin's tax reform that increased the corporate tax from the 10 % to which the Military Government had lowered it (and the GDP growing at double digits in 1989 under Minister Büchi's leadership) to 15 % in 1991.
At that time Piñera was a senator, but he appeared in the newspaper as chairman of the board of directors of Editorial Los Andes, a corporation, despite the fact that Article 57 of the Constitution stated that the parliamentarian who "accepts to be a director of a corporation" shall cease to hold office. But Sebastián has never cared nor has the Constitution or the laws been applied to him (if he had not been charged here today, as he is in Argentina).[5]
Political history
2005 election
He wanted to be a presidential candidate, already in the '90s, but was caught conspiring in an unconfessable way against Evelyn Matthei and had to wait for everything to be settled by the newspapers and blaming her, leaving him as a "victim". Then he tried to harm to Lavín in 2005, when he had the support of the Independent Democratic Union and National Renewal assured, but the latter was stolen by Sebastián. Then candidate Michelle Bachelet, who had plenty of votes in that first round, called her supporters to vote for Piñera "to stop Lavín". Lavín was still right-wing and a defender of the military.
2009 election
Sebastián was thus "positioned" and in 2009 he ran against Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle. Things looked close. Then he asked to summon retired military men, who flocked to his club in the Alameda and promised to enforce the laws in the trials-business of leftist lawyers of "human rights". In particular, he promised to enforce the statute of limitations and offered to shorten the number of trials, which at that time was around 300. He was elected. It was the first supposed right-wing government to enter La Moneda since the Military Government of Augusto Pinochet and President Jorge Alessandri who governed from 1958 to 1962, however, Piñera's Government was going to be a continuation of the Concertación instead of an opposition. Piñera's Coalition was called "Alianza por el Cambio" (Alliance for Change).
First Government
Piñera raised taxes, created more ministries and increasing the spending of the State. Half of the jobs generated during his four-year term were in 2010, his first year, and thanks to the enormous fiscal impulse that the minister of the previous administration, Andrés Velasco, gave to the economy: he made public expenditure grow by 16.5 % in 2009[6] and public investment by 25.1 %, also in 2009, unprecedented figures in the economic history of the country, which gave a boost to the following years. But then Piñera decreased public investment, which even fell by --4.3 % in 2013, his last year.[7] He also rejected Hidroaysén hydroelectric plant for ecologist reasons.
GDP grew less and less and fell from 5.8 % in 2010 and 2011 to 5.5 % in 2012 and 4.0 % in 2013. It had structural fiscal deficit in all its years of government and effective deficit in two of the four.[8] The national savings rate dropped from 24 % in 2010 to 20.6 % in 2013.[9]
Public sector indebtedness increased from 8.6 % of GDP when Piñera received the government to 12.6 % when he left it [10]. He benefited from the highest copper price in history for a while, however the country fell from 30th to 34th place in world competitiveness during his administration.[11][4]
2010 was the Bicentenary year of the Republic of Chile, Piñera had the honor to be President in this celebration. In the same year the famous 2010 Copiapó mining accident in the San José Mine happen in which the government successfully rescued all 33 miners alive, this was used politically by Piñera which took credit for it and also showed a paper of them being alive in all over the world while the miners where underground. His government had the task to reconstruct Chile after the earthquake of magnitude 8.8 which as a technocrat managed to do.
Piñera, after having proclaimed in 2011 that the communist "student" movement (leaded by Gabriel Boric, Giorgio Jackson and Camila Vallejo) was "great, noble, beautiful", he immediately picked up one of the proposals of the communist protests: to raise the corporate tax to improve state education, which was not in his program and contravenes a fundamental precept of the right wing. But it turned out to be another "piñericosa" (term used to describe Piñera's blunders), since the following year the income tax collection fell by 6.1%.[12][13]
In accordance with the new criminal procedure system, the judges of guarantee let free the Antifa protestors arrested by Carabineros because "in a scenario of stones, water, tear gas bombs, smoke and people running all over the place, it is quite risky to determine their participation".[14]
One of the first taxes he raised was the mining royalty which, as it had always been a favorite tribute of the communists (Piñera loved to make them favours, and that is why he declared Volodia Teitelboim "a great of the history of Chile", financed a treatment to Gladys Marín and publicly said that Pinochet had been worse than Allende). The result was the fall in national mining production, apart from the drop in mineral prices.
But when he raised taxes in 2010, he took the proceeds from the sales of Colo Colo, Chilevisión and LAN Airlines, three quarters of his wealth, to tax havens abroad. Taxes went up for others, but not for him. This only became known as a result of the lawsuit filed by the communist deputy Hugo Gutiérrez for incompatible negotiation, since Piñera had bought shares of the Peruvian company "Exalmar" when that country was litigating with Chile in The International Court located in The Hague to obtain more surface of the exclusive maritime zone. In 2011 the famous television presenter and actor, Felipe Camiroaga, and other television personalities died tragically on a plane accident in the Juan Fernández Archipelago.
Once elected, he did the opposite of what he had promised: he tripled the number of lawsuits (a thousand more) against the military, whose number of prisoners reached more than 200, filling Punta Peuco Jail. And he declared that the supporters of the Junta Regime (with whose votes he had reached La Moneda) were "passive accomplices" of "human rights abuses" and "crimes against humanity". He hired dozens of leftist lawyers in the Ministry of the Interior to better prosecute the uniformed officers and to sponsor appeals before the Supreme Court to increase their sentences, when in the first instance and appeals they had been low or had been remitted and the leftist plaintiffs themselves had been satisfied. In this way he made possible millionaire compensations at the expense of the Treasury. Never had the human rights lawyers won as much as under Piñera.
Since at the end of his mandate he was low in the polls (because he was always caught, and he had been denounced in several obscure situations) he decided to transfer the generals who were imprisoned in the "Cordillera Jail" to the Punta Peuco penitentiary. A gift for the most hateful left. The most pundit of the unjustly imprisoned generals, Odlanier Mena, innocent, of course, and terminally ill, opted for suicide. And with that vile publicity stunt and the communist applause (guaranteed after he allowed the hammer and sickle emblem to be hung on the portico of "Cordillera" on the night of the publicized transfer), he rebounded in the polls and reached the 50% he longed for. The then still communist Javiera Parada recited eclogues of homage to Piñera.
In 2013, he praised as "brave and mature" a pregnant 11-year-old rape victim who said she was happy to have the child. The same year in the context of terrorism in the South of Chile, the couple of elders, Luchsinger-Mackay, was burnt alive by indigenist marxist terrorists in La Araucanía. The new fishing law promulgated during his government was questioned due to cases of bribery during its redaction on the Congress.
Half of the million jobs created was in 2010 alone and thanks to the record increases of the previous administration minister, Andrés Velasco, in public spending in 2009, 16.5%, and public investment, 21.6%. Piñera ended up decreasing public investment in 2013.[7] It was the preamble of the lower job creation that took place from the final part of his government.[15]
He influenced the Chilean football federation, changing its prsident, Mayne-Nichols for Sergio Jadue and had involved in the DT Bielsa's resignation.
As a consequence of the prevailing discontent, a government of the globalist left (Bachelet) came after Piñera's government, which triumphed with almost two thirds of the votes. The candidate to succeed him had to settle for the remaining third: that was the political fruit of Piñera with his "Fifth Government of the Concertación".
He extended the "postnatal" from 3 months to 6 (a law which secures mothers to be with her baby, not working, 6 months after its born) and made a civil union law for gay couples to live together legally and inherit their stuff in case of death.
Piñera promoted a general pardon law for leftist terrorists from the Military Government, in his own words "those condemned or prosecuted for infractions to the anti-terrorist legislation and other penal provisions on politically motivated violence" [16]. But it denies pardons to uniformed officers.[17]
2017 election
Incredibly, the right wing relapsed in 2017 and reelected him as their candidate. José Antonio Kast, who was more right-wing was defeated by Piñera in the first round of that year, Kast prophesied to the Piñera businessmen (that is, to almost all of them), in Casapiedra and during the campaign, what was to come: "if you continue doing the same, you are going to have this in power in 2022". And he projected on the screen an image of Boric and Jackson.[18] Kast and his supporters helped Piñera win the second round to avoid an Alejandro Guiller government, a continuation of Bachelet's Government.
Second Government
Piñera leaded the center-right coalition called Chile Vamos. He advocated the homosexual agenda by supporting Gender Identity laws,[19][20][2] a "deep cultural change",[21] increase the number of ministries,[22] a "gender equality" agenda,[23][24] the legalization of 300.000 illegal immigrants,[25] the increase of digital taxes,[26] and maintain the 27% of corporate taxes.[27]
He also promoted the "Safe Classroom" law which regulates the expulsion of violent students from public schools,[28] a law which privileges the meritocracy in the admission to Chilean Schools[29] and he refused to sign the UN Global Migration Pact[30] however he signed the UN Refugee Pact.[31]
In 2018, Piñera promised to oppose efforts to expand abortion in the country, saying he will do “everything that is necessary to defend life”. The same year he rejected signing the globalist and ecologist Escazú Agreement arguing sovereign reasons.[32][33] In August he designed Mauricio Rojas as Culture Minister who just after two days was expelled since the Media found his declarations about the Marxist "Museum of Memory" where he said it was a hoax.
In his first year of government, around 200,000 immigrants entered Chile, with a total of 1,251,225 new immigrants since 2014.[34] Piñera continued an open border policy similar to what his predecessor did, but under Piñera, it was a bit more regulated and the main new immigrants were Venezuelans instead of Haitians. Illegal immigrants were pardoned and a new more flexible immigration law was made. One of his minister said that Venezuelan immigrants would be welcome "as long as the country can stand it".[35]
He supported Juan Guaidó against marxist dictator Nicolás Maduro in the Venezuelan crisis.
Piñera wanted to host COP25 (Climate Change United Nations summit) and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit of 2019, in which President Trump planned to sign an agreement with China regarding the Trade War[36][37] however the 2019 October Marxist insurrection (called Estallido social by the left) occurred during Piñera's presidency and in November 15, 2019, a "Peace" Agreement in the Congress was made in order to start the process of a full Constitutional Change with a referendum set for April 2020 (which took place in October due to lockdowns) in which the Approve option won against the Rejection one, the second referendum with the New Constitution written is set for September 2022 during Boric's Administration.
He implemented Vaccine passports and lockdowns as well as a big COVID vaccine distribution in Chile during the COVID 'pandemic'. As a globalist he supported the implementation of 5G in Chile to which he said "With 5G comes the ability to read thoughts and manipulate feelings".[38] President Piñera vetoed leftist "Childhood Guarantees Act" (Ley de Garantías de la Niñez) a law which was made to eliminate the guarantee bases of parents in the care of their children, who would pass into the hands of the State and through its political and ideological operators, would constantly monitor parents, eliminating all freedom and rights of parents over their children and the defense of their rights. The law included "Progressive Autonomy" and "Comprehensive Sexual Education (ESI)", legislation that was already vetoed at the time, but which was included on a second time.[39][40]
The 2021 presidential election was won by Gabriel Boric in the second round, the first one was won by José Antonio Kast, the favorite candidate of Piñera was Sebastián Sichel, who was minister in his administration and was previously a politician from the center left (Concertación). Boric, with only 35 years, was one of the leaders of the 2011 protests, and, not even him imagined to be President after Piñera.
In the last year of his second administration Piñera pushed for the legalization of same sex "marriage", on his last day as President he received the first gay couple to use this law when this one became efective[41] and on the same day the administration officialized documents on possible side effects of vaccination.[42]
See also
References
- ↑ Chile shifts right as billionaire wins presidency. Reuters (January 7 2010).
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Piñera destacó anuncios en agenda de género en diálogo con Primer Ministro de Canadá (es). T13 (25 May 2018).
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Gonzalo Townsend Pinochet (July 28, 2009). Sobrino de Pinochet asegura que Madariaga dice la verdad (es). La Nación.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 El Triunfo del Prontuario Más Negro (es). Hermógenes Pérez de Arce's Blog (4 June 2017).
- ↑ "La Nación", Buenos Aires, 29.12.16
- ↑ "El Mercurio", 30.09.16
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 "El Mercurio", 01.10.16
- ↑ "El Mercurio", 04.10.16
- ↑ "El Mercurio", 21.10.16
- ↑ "El Mercurio", 29.09.16
- ↑ "El Mercurio", 28.09.16
- ↑ "El Mercurio", 17.02.14, p. B4
- ↑ Legado del Segundo Kerensky Chileno (es). Hermógenes Pérez de Arce's Blog (9 March 2014).
- ↑ "Cría Cuervos y Te Sacarán los Ojos" (es). Hermógenes Pérez de Arce's Blog (9 Agusut 2011).
- ↑ Y las Últimas Frescuras de Piñera (es). Hermógenes Pérez de Arce's Blog (3 May 2017).
- ↑ "La Segunda" of June 9, 2011, p. 10
- ↑ País Primitivo con Plata (es). Hermógenes Pérez de Arce's blog (June 9, 2011).
- ↑ La Historia No Absolverá a Sebastián Piñera (es). Hermógenes Pérez de Arce's Blog (12 March 2022).
- ↑ Chile enacts landmark gender identity law. Santiago Times (November 29, 2018).
- ↑ Piñera defiende Ley de Identidad de Género tras asistir al Tedeum Evangélico (es). Emol (September 16, 2018).
- ↑ Agenda de género: el largo etcétera de la cuenta pública de Sebastián Piñera (es). El Mostrador (2 June 2019).
- ↑ El nuevo Ministerio de Ciudad, Vivienda y Territorio anunciado por Sebastián Piñera (es). RockAndPop (3 June 2019).
- ↑ #TodosPorTodas: Presidente Piñera anuncia Agenda de Equidad de Género (es). Gobierno de Chile (23 May 2018).
- ↑ Revisa los 12 puntos de la Agenda de Equidad de Género presentada por el Gobierno (es). T13 (23 May 2019).
- ↑ Piñera anuncia en Chile la regularización gradual de 300.000 inmigrantes (es). El País (9 April 2019).
- ↑ Piñera confirma impuesto a plataformas digitales como Netflix, Uber y Spotify (es). T13 (21 August 2018).
- ↑ Piñera decide mantener tasa de impuesto a empresas en 27% por "dificultades heredadas" (es). Economía y Negocios (1 June 2018).
- ↑ Gobierno envía al Congreso Proyecto de Ley "Aula Segura" (es). Gobierno de Chile (20 September 2018).
- ↑ Nacional Ministra Cubillos defiende proyecto de Admisión Justa y señala que el actual sistema "es ciego y solo ve el rut del niño" (es). La Tercera (Febrary 7 2019).
- ↑ Presidente explicó nuevamente por qué Chile no suscribió el Pacto Migratorio de la ONU (es). Cooperativa (15 December 2018).
- ↑ ONU adopta Pacto Mundial sobre Refugiados con el apoyo de Chile y el rechazo de EE.UU. (es). Emol (17 December 2018).
- ↑ Acuerdo de Escazú: el polémico rechazo de Chile al primer gran pacto medioambiental de América Latina y el Caribe (es). BB Mundo (23 September 2020).
- ↑ Ministra Schmidt explica por qué no se firmó el Acuerdo de Escazú: "No queremos que se ponga en peligro la soberanía de nuestro país" (es). El Mostrador (1 October 2018).
- ↑ Inmigrantes en Chile llegan a 1.251.225 personas y venezolanos superan a peruanos por primera vez (es). T13 (14 Febrary 2019).
- ↑ Cecilia Pérez afirma que se seguirá recibiendo migración venezolana a Chile "hasta que el país lo resista" (es). La Tercera (July 8, 2019).
- ↑ Chile protagonista inesperado: Trump cambia de idea y anuncia acuerdo con China que se firmaría en la APEC (es). El Mostrador (October 11, 2019).
- ↑ Donald Trump, Xi Jinping set for November 17 meeting in Chile to sign interim trade war deal. South China Morning Post (October 29, 2019).
- ↑ Piñera (Presidente de Chile): Con el 5G llega la posibilidad de leer nuestros pensamientos y manipular los sentimientos (es) (June 10th 2021).
- ↑ PADRES ENTREGAN CARTA AL PRESIDENTE SEBASTIÁN PIÑERA PARA PEDIR VETAR LEY DE GARANTÍAS DE LA NIÑEZ (es). El Baquedano (June 8, 2021).
- ↑ Presidente Piñera veta proyecto de ley de Garantías de la Niñez (es). La Tercera (June 21, 2021).
- ↑ Se concreta la primera ceremonia de matrimonio igualitario en Chile (es). Emol (March 10, 2022).
- ↑ Gobierno de Piñera oficializó documentos sobre posibles efectos secundarios de la vacunación el último día de su mandato (es) (March 31 2022).
