Social:Broad Front (Chile)

Short description: Political coalition in Chile

<div style="padding-top:0.3em; padding-bottom:0.3em; border-top:2px solid ; border-bottom:2px solid ; line-height: 1;"> Broad Front Frente Amplio
Leader	Gabriel Boric
Founded	21 January 2017 (2017-01-21)
Headquarters	Santiago de Chile
Ideology	Democratic socialism Progressivism Radical democracy Factions: Autonomism Social democracy
Political position	Left-wing
National affiliation	Apruebo Dignidad
Chamber of Deputies	23 / 155 <div style="background-color: ; width: 15%; height: 100%;">
Senate	1 / 50 <div style="background-color: ; width: 2%; height: 100%;">
Mayors	13 / 345 <div style="background-color: ; width: 4%; height: 100%;">
Website
[1]

The Broad Front (Spanish: Frente Amplio, FA) is a Chile an political coalition founded in early 2017, composed of left-wing parties and movements. Its first electoral contest was the 2017 Chilean general election, where their presidential candidate Beatriz Sánchez came third with 20% of the vote in the first round of election (she just missed getting to the second-round run-off by 3%). The Broad Front also expanded their electoral representation to 20 deputies (out of 155), 1 senator (out of 43) and 21 out of 278 Regional Councillors, thus consolidating the movement as the 'third force' in Chilean politics.

Platform and ideology

The Broad Front's adheres to the following principles:

1. We believe in a Chile for all, respectful of the environment and where social rights are the basis of a full democracy. 2. We believe that a society of rights is only possible by overcoming the current neoliberal economic model. 3. To meet these objectives, we believe in the need to generate a transformative political and social force that is an alternative to the duopoly formed by the right and the New Majority. 4. We believe in unity in the diversity of the forces of change, with a participatory, democratic and plural vocation capable of acting with total independence from corporate power. 5. We believe in participatory democracy, which is why we will build our program in an open and binding way.

In one Broad Front political program, various proposals were put forward such as promoting more sustainable economic development:

“The regulation of the economic system must be oriented towards sustainable and responsible production and development with our environment. We do not conceive of our planet as an area containing resources, but as a home in danger due to the indiscriminate exploitation of human beings on earth. For the most part, countries – even the biggest polluters – recognize the crisis and the need to act. However, they do not offer solutions that herald significant alterations to the model of “progress”, growth and development that has deteriorated our collective home. Energy efficiency, the generation of sustainable energy and the promotion of citizen and human responsibility constitute the pillars of the changes that we must build for the good of future generations of the planet. In this framework, we will propose a critical and purposeful vision of the extractive nature of the global capitalist system and from there we will design effective actions to build more environmentally just societies. Although our country has always been sensitive and aware of the problem of climate change, there is no supervisory body that evaluates compliance with the emissions control goals to which it adheres internationally (for example, the initiatives committed in 2016 through the Paris Agreement). Due to the geographical particularities of Chile, which strongly expose us to the negative manifestations of climate change, we will be an exemplary actor in the region by creating an institutional framework that assumes this lack.”

Although it has the same name as the center-left coalition from Uruguay, political analysts tend to see the Broad Front as more similar to the Spanish left-wing populist party Podemos. Diverging views exist within the coalition. Some members, such as Liberal Vlado Mirosevic argued the coalition cannot be "broad" if it only includes left-leaning forces. On the other hand, presidential primary candidate Alberto Mayol highlighted the fact that a clear "leftist tradition" exists in most of the coalition members.

History

The Broad Front's origins lay in the 2011 Chilean student movement, the second biggest social protest in the country's recent history since the restoration of democracy in 1990. Student demands centered on the right to free education and led to months of school and university occupations across Chile, which continued for several years. Within the student movement, new political forces began to emerge, displacing traditional forces (such as the Communist Youth and center-left groups) at the head of high school and university unions and federations. Among them where Giorgio Jackson at the Catholic University and Gabriel Boric at the University of Chile.

In the 2014 Chilean general election, both Jackson and Boric became MPs after running as independents and defying both traditional coalitions: the center-right Chile Vamos and the center-left Nueva Mayoría (formerly, Concertación). Along with Vlado Mirosevic (Liberal Party), Jackson and Boric were currently the only Broad Front MPs at the moment of the alliance's constitution.

At early 2016, it was reported that Boric and Jackson held talks with several political and social movements in order to create a "broad left front" of anti-establishment forces, aiming to have a parliamentary list and a presidential candidate for the 2017 general elections. By August 2016, Boric's Autonomist Movement and Jackson's Democratic Revolution made a formal alliance with the Libertarian Left, New Democracy and the Humanist Party. After the October 2016 municipal elections, Jorge Sharp (from the Autonomist Movement) became the first political independent to rule Chile's third largest city: Valparaiso. Sharp's rise began as a grassroots initiative, running with several other left-wing candidates in a "citizen primary", described by The Guardian as a "quiet revolution against politics-as-usual".

In January 2017 the Broad Front was formally established by eleven political forces. Discussions began on how to choose a presidential nominee. Initially, the coalition was in favor of implementing an online referendum, but later decided in favor of participating in the legal primary process, since this would give them the chance to engage in a real electoral test and obtain national coverage at the same level as their well-established rival political coalitions. Since most of the Broad Front forces were movements lacking official status as political parties, the bloc decided to collect thousands of signatures to grant Democratic Revolution official political party status and use it to apply for the primaries. In May 2017, Democratic Revolution submitted close to 49 thousand signatures to the Electoral Service, thus qualifying for implementing primaries.

In June 2017, Constanza Valdés became the spokesperson for the Broad Front. She was the first trans spokesperson for a political organization.

The primaries took place as part of the July 2017 Chilean presidential primaries. Beatriz Sanchez, a popular journalist nominated by the majority of the Broad Front forces, obtained 67.56%, beating sociologist Alberto Mayol, who obtained 32.44%. 327,716 people voted in the Broad Front primary (a small number compared to the 1,418,138 who decided to vote for the right-wing Chile Vamos candidates).

As of September 2017 — and according to several opinion polls — Beatriz Sanchez was fighting closely with Nueva Mayoría candidate, Alejandro Guillier, to make it into the second round of and face businessman and former president Sebastián Piñera.

The Broad Front presented several candidates for the Chamber of Deputies and Regional Councils, as well as some for the Senate. Among the notable figures were (besides those currently serving as MPs at that time) former presidential candidate Tomás Hirsch, journalist Pamela Jiles, student leaders such as former FECh president Camila Rojas and several others.

Finally, in the November general election, Sánchez came third with 20% of the vote — just missing getting into the second-round by 3%. This was the best performance of any non-traditional left-wing candidate since the return to democracy. The Broad Front also expanded their electoral representation from 3 to 20 deputies, one senator and 21 Regional Counselors, thus consolidating the alliances as the "third force" of Chilean politics.

Composition

The coalition consists of four political parties and movements:

Party	Spanish	Leader	Deputies	Senators
Democratic Revolution	Revolución Democrática (RD)	Diego Vela	7 / 155	1 / 43
Social Convergence	Convergencia Social (CS)	Gabriel Boric	10 / 155	0 / 43
Commons	Comunes	Marco Velarde	4 / 155	0 / 43

Former members

Party	Spanish
Country Party	PAIS
Libertarian Left	Izquierda Libertaria (IL)
Equality Party	Partido Igualdad (PI)
Humanist Party	Partido Humanista (PH)
Liberal Party	Partido Liberal (PL)
Green Ecologist Party	Partido Ecologista Verde (PEV)

External links

• Official website