Chile’s Pinera sacks cabinet in bid to appease protesters, as normalcy returns to Santiago

CHILEAN President Sebastian Pinera on Saturday announced a major government reshuffle, a day after more than one million people took to the streets in a massive protest for economic and political change.

“I asked all ministers to resign in order to form a new government and to be able to respond to these new demands,” he said in an address to the nation, adding that a highly controversial state of emergency might be lifted on Sunday if “circumstances permit”.

The military also announced that an overnight curfew would be lifted on Saturday.

“We are in a new reality,” Pinera said. “Chile is different from what it was a week ago.”

Chile’s government has been struggling to craft an effective response to deadly protests that were sparked by a rise in metro fares but fuelled by a growing list of economic and political demands that include Pinera’s resignation.

The breadth and ferocity of the demonstrations appear to have caught the government of Chile – long one of Latin America’s richest and most stable countries – off-guard.

For the past week, pent-up anger erupted in demonstrations over a socio-economic structure that many feel has left them by the wayside.

On Saturday afternoon, however, the military presence in the capital was visibly reduced, even as a hundred protesters gathered in front of the presidential palace before being dispersed by water cannon.

Across the capital and elsewhere in the country, demonstrations materialised only sporadically, just one day after the mega-protests of more than a million people.

Over the weekend five of Santiago’s seven metro lines – which usually carry three million people per day – were partially operating, and 98 per cent of buses were functional. Shops had reopened.

A t housa nd volu nteers gat hered downtown to clear protest debris and scrub walls covered in slogans such a s “Ch i le woke up” a nd “P i ner a resig n”.

Pinera, who assumed office in March 2018, had already shuffled his cabinet twice in 15 months as doubts grew about a slowing economy and his leadership.

One of the most controversial members of the current cabinet is Interior Minister Andres Chadwick, Pinera’s cousin.

Eric Silva, a professor of biology, said Pinera had to implement the latest shuffle because he is “trapped”.

“It will be helpful but it’s not how they are going to solve the problems,” he said.

The protesters’ demands now also include scrapping and replacing the nation’s Constitution, which dates from the 1973-90 Augusto Pinochet dictatorship.

The more than one million people who took to the streets of Santiago and other cities on Friday represented a range of political backgrounds and hailed from all social classes.

The protests represented some of the largest demonstrations ever seen in the country of 18 million, and police said 820,000 people marched in the capital alone.

At least 19 people died in the worst violence since Chile returned to democracy after the Pinochet dictatorship.

Authorities deployed some 20,000 police and soldiers in Santiago, using tear gas and water cannon to disperse demonstrators.

Security forces have been accused of using unnecessary force in supressing the protests. The UN is sending a team to investigate allegations of abuse.

The national human rights institute INDH, meanwhile, said 584 people have been wounded and 2,410 detained.