Andrés Velasco
Andrés Velasco, a former presidential
candidate and finance minister of Chile, is Professor of Professional
Practice in International Development at Columbia University's School of
International and Public Affairs. He has taught at Harvard University
and New York University, and is the author of num… read more
SANTIAGO
– “Every country gets the leaders it deserves,” the French
counter-revolutionary Joseph de Maistre quipped. He was wrong. The
countries of Latin America did not deserve the blustering demagogues and
iron-fisted generals who, until recently, often occupied the seats of
government.
A
look at Venezuela or Nicaragua reminds us that the demagogues and the
populists are not yet gone. But a new kind of leader – moderate,
intellectually humble, and prone to gradualism – has been in ascendance
since the 1990s. This is the kind of leadership Latin America does indeed deserve.
The
elder statesman of this generation of pragmatists died last week. In a
continent of loud-mouthed leaders, Patricio Aylwin, who led Chile from
dictatorship to democracy in 1990, was an oddity: a soft-spoken
professor whose great love was the study of the more abstruse aspects of
administrative law. His legacy sheds light on what moderate leaders in
Latin America must do if they are to succeed.
Aylwin
faced one of the toughest moral choices any leader of a newly
re-established democracy can confront: how far to push prosecution of
those who had abducted, tortured, and killed thousands of Chileans
during General Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. His answer remains
controversial to this day. He would, he said, pursue justice “to the
extent [that it is] possible.”
At
first, the idea seems shocking: Isn’t justice supposed to be an
absolute moral imperative? It is. But history shows that it is an
imperative that cannot always be perfectly achieved. Obtaining justice,
however imperfect, is itself a moral goal. Aylwin understood this, and
acted accordingly.
The
coalition he led boldly took up Pinochet’s challenge to participate in a
1988 referendum on extending his rule, won the vote against all odds,
and in 1990 removed the dictator from office. If there was ever a case
of a dictator going not by the sword, but by the mighty pen, this was
it.
Once
in office, the new democratic government decided that before punishment
could be meted out, the whole truth about the violation of human rights
should be established. Chile’s “Truth and Reconciliation Commission”
became a model for similar bodies established in the 1990s in South
Africa and other countries worldwide. Aylwin went on television
to share the grim truth with citizens. His voice breaking, he
apologized on behalf of the state for the crimes committed. The voices
of Chileans of my generation still break when we recall that moment.
The
courts did their job. Pinochet never saw the inside of a cell, but many
of his henchmen – including the head of his secret police – served long
sentences. How many countries emerging from dark authoritarian rule
(one thinks of Russia, East Germany, Spain, Portugal, or Brazil) can
claim the same? Justice in Aylwin’s Chile was carried out to the extent
possible, but it was nothing to scoff at.
Aylwin
belonged to the Christian Democratic Party, which in Chile emerged from
the ashes of the old Conservative Party. He was a practicing Catholic.
He would not have liked to be called a liberal. Yet he governed in the style of the philosopher Isaiah Berlin’s liberal fox, who knows many things, as opposed to Berlin’s hedgehog, who knows one big thing.
Populists,
in Latin America and elsewhere, are always hedgehogs. They are
dogmatic. The world has to adapt to their monolithic ideology, not vice versa.
Pragmatism, policy experimentation, gradual learning – this is not
their thing. “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do,
sir?” The spirit behind this famous quip, attributed to John Maynard
Keynes, would be alien to the populist camp, but not to the generation
of Latin American pragmatists epitomized by Aylwin.
He
was the anti-populist. Coming to office after 17 years of right-wing
authoritarian rule, the temptation to promise handsomely and spend
lavishly was enormous. Instead, he practiced fiscal austerity and
offered Chileans dignity, plus sweat and toil (though no blood or
tears).
Aylwin
was instinctively wary of markets and once proudly claimed never to
have set foot in a shopping mall. Yet, upon becoming president, he did
not simply maintain Chile’s free-market system; he deepened it, signing
free-trade agreements with a slew of countries. At the same time, his
government raised taxes, increased social expenditures, and strengthened
collective bargaining in a deal with the unions. His was foxy leadership at its best.
The results were encouraging. In the years since 1990, per capita
income in Chile has tripled. Back then, 40% of Chileans lived below the
poverty line; today, the figure is around 10%. Inequality has not
fallen; but, contrary to what some critics claim, it has not increased
either.
The
economist Albert O. Hirschman, arguably the most insightful outside
observer of Latin American politics in the last half-century, was
critical of what he called – borrowing from Flaubert – la rage de vouloir conclure,
or the obsession of some Latin American leaders to try to bring
everything to an immediate conclusion. In its place, Hirschman called for leaders who had a “passion for the possible,” and who would patiently engage in “reform-mongering.”
Aylwin
answered this call. So did Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil, Alan
García of Peru, Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico, Juan Manuel Santos of
Colombia, Ricardo Lagos of Chile, and Julio María Sanguinetti of
Uruguay. For a while, Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva seemed to be
part of the group. Argentina’s Mauricio Macri is a strong applicant, but after only a few months in office it is too early to tell.
“Possibilism”
is not the same as complacency. On the contrary, it aims, in
Hirschman’s words, “to widen the limits of what is or is perceived to be
possible.” Once upon a time, it did not seem possible for Latin America
to be well governed. Today we know otherwise. For that, we should thank
leaders like Patricio Aylwin.
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