Noam Titelman, 38, Jerusalem, is one of the systematic observers of Chilean politics, even if he’s as far away as he is now, and maybe even more so if presidential and parliamentary elections prevail. Originally from the Canadian city of Calgary and currently a research fellow at the same university, he approaches political moments not only with specialization in comparative politics, electoral behavior, and Chilean progressivism, but also with regard to the specificities that have shaped his own experience.
Already in 2012, when future president Gabriel Boric headed the Federation of Students of the Universities of Chile (FECH), the commercial engineering and literature graduate was a counterpart to FEUC, which brought together students from Catholic universities. The following year, as contemporaries such as Borich, Camila Vallejo, and Giorgio Jackson became members of Congress, Titelman moved into the world of thought, founding the Democracy Deepening Research Network (RED), and then studying abroad at the London School of Economics, specializing in social research methods.
He says he is currently maintaining his activities with Frente Amplio. Frente Amplio is a coalition that brought together scattered young leftists in 2017, and has now reconverted to become President Boric’s party. However, he has made it clear that this does not prevent him from publicly reflecting on himself or other communities, or from conducting analysis, research, or research. He confesses that he’s more cautious now because he got into trouble for criticizing the current government in an interview a while back (“Who am I to criticize anyone?” he muttered rather ruefully today).
In a conversation with EL PAÍS, Titelmann said that he carefully tries to distance himself from academic self-absorption and motivation. opinionated. “There is a middle ground,” he asserts, relying on Edward Said, who spoke of secular critics, “who can identify themselves in the space of a political field and at the same time be willing to criticize that same field.” But there are apartments in all. It’s no wonder he considers his position “not only an uncomfortable position for someone who expects to be a spokesperson, but also an uncomfortable position for someone who expects to remain outside of incidental discussion. Sometimes it’s good to be a little uncomfortable.”
Given all this, one might think that for La Moneda’s contemporaries today, the carrots and sticks would be on their side for the time being. La Moneda is where polls suggest the right will arrive in March, whether traditional or extreme.
“My impression is that this is a good government, and I truly believe that it is far from the over-the-top expectations it initially seemed, but I also think it is far from some kind of doomsaying that is trying to say everything is wrong,” the analyst said at the outset. He then addressed the international situation on the left, diagnosing that “progressivism in all its forms is in crisis globally” and accusing “progressivism and the left, in some cases, of having learned the wrong lessons.”
What does the author of The new Chilean has left (2023)? Not just one. For example, “The lesson to be learned from the speeches of the radical right is that sometimes it is worth defending a particular position, even if it is unpopular.” As seen with José Antonio Casto and Johannes Kaiser, the argument goes, “At a certain point, people come to value politicians who are willing to defend unpopular positions. And in this election, I have yet to see a position so unpopular that the left is willing to defend it.”
Which center?
Having said all of the above, and beyond the inadequacy of left-wing populism as a response to right-wing populism (“it was an electoral disaster”), Titelman seems to believe there is a future for the left. Even in the near future, former Labor Minister and communist activist Janet Jara starts with the merits she admits as favorite to win this Sunday’s first round:
“One of its big advantages[during the election period]was that it was forced to retreat from the echo chamber, thanks to the fact that there was little push from the Communist Party leadership.”
Similarly, it inscribes Hara into its typology, which records three types of candidates: politicians (of the Ricardo Lagos type), near-candidates (a la Bachelet, but also Hara), and polemicists, or happy warrior. This last category, that of fairly energetic candidates at the forefront, could have been that of Evelyn Massey, who has shown strength in these areas, but given the various false steps and inconsistencies of Chili Vamos, Amarillos, and Democratic candidates, this was not the case. Moreover, Titelman believes that the former mayor of Providencia Commune “ended up being a candidate who personified nostalgia.” But he warns there are bigger problems for the man who now claims to be the successor to two-time president Sebastián Piñera.
“The idea of running a candidate who is both contradictory at the same time never makes sense. And I think that was the eternal curse of Mr. Mattei’s candidacy.One day, he called for unity and called for moderates and candidates for encounters. He tried to identify himself as his co-worker, Angela Merkel of Chile, but the next day he was a candidate for a ‘government of torturers’ and legalization of the death penalty, demanding to know what happened to the disappeared detainees.”It was a kind of revenge. ”
“The headline of his candidacy (Mr Mattei) was always ‘We are equal to Kast’ and the downgrade was ‘But we have more experience and therefore bring governance’,” the researcher continued. “And one of their key challenges is to explain why they are different from the radical right. It’s not enough to just point fingers and say, ‘They’re a threat to democracy.'”
These are just a few of the problems plaguing our republic today. Among several other things, mystery in the centera space that articulates the agreement that radicals and Christian Democrats have been fulfilling for decades, but that now appears to no longer exist.
“I think one of the most complex phenomena in Chilean politics over the past decade has been the collapse of the centrist, which was ultimately associated with nostalgia. And it’s interesting because in almost every election in recent years, there was a candidate who said, ‘There are a lot of voters who identify with the centrist, orphan voters who are famous for the centrist, and for some inexplicable reason politicians don’t know how to sympathize with the centrist, and it’s as easy as saying I’m centrist.'” From the centrist to win elections. election”. And regardless of the election results or the poll results, there is this idea that there is an unbreakable belief among a huge mass of people who identify with the centrists, which is not consistent with either the election results or the poll results.
So flirting left and right with a supposed central figure can be a misguided idea to say the least.
“In Chile, for example, the majority may value responsibility and not believe in leaps into thin air, or value consensus and some form of moderation. But that is not the same as identifying with the political center, and by the way, it has nothing to do with this more nostalgic discourse that that center, whether center-left or center-right, has ended up embodying.”
Titelman believes that is one of the keys to this election.
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