The lame duck earthquake
Watching the quick response from the Chilean government these last couple of days, you would easily be forgiven for not noticing that the disaster came at any administration’s most vulnerable point: that lame duck period between when elections are over and the new government is in place. In other words, if this were the United ...
Watching the quick response from the Chilean government these last couple of days, you would easily be forgiven for not noticing that the disaster came at any administration's most vulnerable point: that lame duck period between when elections are over and the new government is in place. In other words, if this were the United States, the earthquake would have hit right about December 15, 2008, right as George W. Bush's administration was thoroughly stuck in the mud.
Watching the quick response from the Chilean government these last couple of days, you would easily be forgiven for not noticing that the disaster came at any administration’s most vulnerable point: that lame duck period between when elections are over and the new government is in place. In other words, if this were the United States, the earthquake would have hit right about December 15, 2008, right as George W. Bush’s administration was thoroughly stuck in the mud.
President Michelle Bachelet will leave office on March 11, handing over the reins to the new president elect, Sebastian Piñera. And as I wrote back in January after the vote, the change is in fact even greater than it seems. Piñera’s victory marks the first time since 1990 that the opposition has been able to topple the now-ruling Concertación. Piñera has already named his cabinet, and announced today that he is already drafting a reconstruction plan. Luckily, that doesn’t seem to be keeping Bachelet’s government from digging into the recovery full force. The trust test may well come when the new ministers and functionaries have to start doing the heavily lifting, before they’ve ever even moved in.
As many such surprises do, the earthquake will likely reshape Piñera’s presidency, one that was supposed to be about moving the country away from its more left-leaning market policies and toward deregulation. Piñera is a long-time businessman and was elected to use his expertise to make the country even more business friendly. But he acknowledged today while discussing his reconstruction plan that his administration’s priorities will have to shift. There will need to be massive spending on infrastructure and government investment of a sort that the fiscally conservative Piñera might not otherwise suggest.
But there are lots of reasons to be hopeful about Chile’s recovery. The country has strong social safety nets — a legacy of the last 20 years of Concertación rule. And perhaps even more importantly, it has been fiscally very wise. Chile has a massive rainy day fund offshore from copper revenues that it has kept for social and educational programs. Now might just be the time to use (at least some of) it.
Elizabeth Dickinson is International Crisis Group’s senior analyst for Colombia.
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