Former President Michelle Bachelet hosted the presidents of the opposition parties on Thursday at her foundation, Horizonte Ciudadano, in Ñuñoa, a comuna (municipality) of Santiago. According to La Tercera, former President Gabriel Boric also attended the meeting.
The party leaders began arriving at around 9.00 a.m. at the foundation's headquarters, at Capitán Fuentes 99. According to the newspaper, the central topic was how to confront the government of José Antonio Kast.
La Tercera did not report the full list of attendees or the outcome of the conversation. So far, other media outlets have not confirmed the details of the meeting.
Bachelet and Boric had already coordinated actions against the Executive. The most recent case was a statement they signed together rejecting Kast's decision to join the Shield of the Americas, an initiative promoted from the United States by President Donald Trump.
The relationship between the two has a relevant precedent. Boric launched, on behalf of the State of Chile, Bachelet's candidacy for Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN). However, the country withdrew that support when Kast took office at La Moneda, the presidential palace, and the bid did not succeed.
The meeting also comes after Bachelet left the door open to a third presidential run. The former president has already governed Chile twice and served as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Before going in, Senator Paulina Vodanovic, president of the Partido Socialista (PS, Socialist Party), outlined her concerns. "It is important to listen to the president", she said. She also asked that Bachelet be made aware of the role the parties have played during a period in opposition that she described as "very difficult".
Vodanovic took a tougher tone toward the Executive. "This is not just any right-wing government, it is a very complex government, whose intention has always been to divide the opposition, to scrape together votes one by one", she said. In her view, the government seeks "to score its points without a true democratic dialogue".
The Socialist leader clarified that Bachelet "has not been absent" and is aware of the opposition's situation. Even so, she said each party should express its views directly to the former president.
The meeting reveals a realignment of the progressive camp around its two most recent presidents. With Bachelet weighing another run for La Moneda, the opposition parties want their work in Congress to carry weight in the decisions the former president makes. As of this writing, no formal agreements from the meeting had been made public.
