In a great journalistic coup, reporters of La Tercera newspaper online edition, in the ravaged town of Iloca they met 8 year old Victor Díaz who narrates what happened to him, his family and community after the February 27, 8.8 earthquake and tsunami. Victor is an example of the strength, courage and sturdiness of all Chileans.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Chile Run Off Election
With just 3 days before Sunday run off election, between right-wing billionaire presidential candidate Sebastián Piñera, and Centre-left ruling Concertación coalition Senator and former President Eduardo Frei, President Michelle Bachelet said today in a interview on Radio Cooperativa, she will be voting for Eduardo Frei.
Bachelet said her option, although clear from the outset it is reasoned on the fact Frei was able to separate business from public life when he entered politics 20 years ago, by divesting all of his business interest. Something that business mogul Piñera has not done. Bachelet said, Piñera has yet to divest of his businesses, has not sold of or set a blind trust for his multiple stakes in Chile's flag airline carrier, LAN, private hospitals, private television channel CHV among other of Piñera´s multiple business interests.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Friday, December 11, 2009
Is Chile Moving to the Right in Dec 13 Presidential Elections
Chile's National Elections, may yield for the first time since 1958 a President from the right-wing. Billionaire businessman, Sebastian Piñera is riding high on the polls. It seems that he will end 20 years of centre-left Concertación coalition Presidents. The Concertación coalition has ruled Chile successfully since the country's return to democracy in 1990. It appears that Michelle Bachelet and her extremely successful government will not be able to pass the torch to Concertación candidate Senator, and former President, Eduardo Frei.
This from France 24, Focus program, Jessica Le Masurier is the hosts, guests are Kevin Cas-Zamora, Latin America specialist at the Brookings Institute, and myself.
This from France 24, Focus program, Jessica Le Masurier is the hosts, guests are Kevin Cas-Zamora, Latin America specialist at the Brookings Institute, and myself.
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
SOME COMMENTS ON RECENT CHILEAN POLITICS
THIS IS A COMMENTARY FROM CHILE BASED RISK AND MILITARY ANALYST ARMEN KOUYOUMDJIAN. I AM POSTING HIS COMMENTARY TO GIVE A DIFFERENT CAUSTIC PERSPECTIVE ON CHILEAN POLITICS.
As We Are Campaigning Full Speed
By Armen Kouyoumdjian
September 8, 2009
Though it has been unofficially going on for as long as one can remember, the election campaign is gathering momentum, though according to the law, the campaign proper cannot start before November 13. Since when were laws respected in Chile, except in country-image discourses? This is probably a pretty unique election in post-Pinochet Chile, due to the existence of a non-negligible third option. This paper does not have the ambition to be a full analysis of the electoral panorama, just over three months before the first round, but a series of pointers and comments with which to follow developments in the remaining months.
THE MAIN CANDIDATES: FREI, PIÑERA, ENRIQUEZ-OMINAMI
THE MECHANICS On December 13, over 8.2 million Chileans will be eligible to vote for the president of the Republic (to serve 4 years from March 11, 2010), 120 deputies (of a similar duration), and 18 senators, who will serve for 8 years. There are actually 38 senators in the upper house, half of whom are renewed each 4 years (alternating odd and even –numbered regions-this time it is the turn of the odd numbers). The first two northernmost regions (XV and I), share the same senators, and threeof the other odd-numbered regions have 4 senators each, but the Metropolitan Region (which also has 4 senators) is not in the race this time, the competition is for 18 seats. There is no XIII region.
The Chilean electoral system is idiosyncratic. Voting is compulsory, but only if you are registered. However, it is not compulsory to register, and though between 10 and 15 % of electors do not bother to turn up, I have never heard of anyone actually being prosecuted for that. There are eternal discussions to reverse the situation by making registration automatic and voting optional, but you know how slowly thoughts are transformed into action down here. Foreigners with 5-year residency can register to vote, and in their case it is not compulsory to actually go to do so, but they cannot be candidates. What a relief!
On this occasion, candidates have until September 14 to register, and voters to September 13. Because only 100,000 bothered to do so (less than the increase in population), candidates asked to have the voter registration date pushed back by a month. The move was swiftly sunk by the government.
It looks almost inevitable that the presidential election will go to a second round, which will take place on January 17, 2010. Deputies and senators have no second round, as their election system is pretty complicated and Byzantine, so designed by Pinochet to avoid overwhelming majorities that could actually get something done in the country. The question that begs an answer is why there should be 5 weeks between the two rounds (other countries manage with as little as a week), considering January 17 is in the midst of the Austral summer and a major irritation for many (it is bad enough that the elections themselves take place 10 days before Xmas, at the same time as year-end exams and graduation festivities at schools and universities. Thankfully, it is only each 4 years)
THE CAST Sticking to the presidential race, the contest will be in the first round between the ruling Concertacion candidate and former president Eduardo Frei, businessman and former politician Sebastian Piñera for the Rightist Alianza, and an independent newcomer in the shape of a young deputy who left the Concertacion’s Socialist Party, Marco Enríquez Ominami, to offer a new option.
There may be one or two other candidates, mostly dissidents from the Concertacion, but their combined force is negligible even as leverage. To the left of the Concertacion, former minister Jorge Arrate is trying to convince a rival, Alejandro Navarro, to join forces with him, whereas a former Christian Democrat party chairman, Senator Adolfo Zaldivar, who was expulsed violently from the party, is being wooed back again (how low does opportunistic hypocrisy get in Chile). The final line-up will be known on September 14, so there is not long to wait. On September 23, those in the race will take place in a televised debate led by one of Chile’s most respected journalists, Alejandro Guillier. We are promised that it will not just be monologues, and the participants will have the right to reply to each other’s statements.
On the parliamentary side, there have been many negotiations and deals, and these will go on until the last moments, including attempts to pick up “street walker” politicians, who have moved parties more often than Liz Taylor got married (a good example of this being Jorge Schauhlson, who used to chair the social-democrat PPD and is now ready to have a go as an UDI congressman, to the extreme Right of the political spectrum).
It is an equal opportunity election. Of the three leading candidates, apart from the unavoidable Spanish ancestry, you have Swiss (some say Austrian) background in Frei, and Enriquez-Ominami’s adoptive grandfather was Japanese. A Chilean genealogist did some research and claims that all three are in fact related. That might explain why they got together and went to Mrs. Rosenberg’s Kosher employment agency to each get a discounted campaign mover and shaker. Thus came on board, with less than a steady foothold, Rodrigo Hinzpeter (for Piñera), Pablo Halpern (damaged goods from the InterAmerican Development Bank, for Frei) and Max Colodro for Enriquez-Ominami). At least two of the three have already shown to be more a liability than an asset, but no candidate wants to face the image cost of firing their campaign manager. Chile is really an open society. After all, a Shiite Moslem, Hosain Sabag, was vice-president of the Christian Democrat party not so long ago.
INTERPRETING THE LATEST POLLS The only opinion poll which really matters in Chile is that carried out by the Centro de Estudios Públicos (CEP). Contrary to other cut-price exercises carried out on the phone by ringing only landlines (which most poorer people do not have), CEP does it in person, and asks face to face, as well as requesting an anonymous ballot paper to be put in a box, like in a real election.
The latest version of the CEP poll last week (there will be one more, probably in November), came up with the following results for the main presidential race (there were many more questions but I am sticking to the fundamentals (answers from registered voters only.):
-To the question: “Who do you THINK will be the next president of Chile?”, the answers were: Piñera (49 %), Frei (33 %), Enriquez-Ominami (6 %).
-To the question: “Who would you LIKE to be the next president of Chile?”, the score was Piñera (33 %), Frei (22 %), Enriquez-Ominami (14 %), and surprisingly, Bachelet, who got 8 % (though she cannot stand, of course).
-To the question: “Who will you VOTE for in the FIRST round?, the results were Piñera (37 %), Frei (28 %), Enriquez-Ominami (17 %).
-To the question: Who will you vote for in the SECOND round if the contest is Piñera vs. Frei?, the result is Piñera 42 %, and Frei 39 %.
-To the question: Who will you vote for in the SECOND round if the contest is between Piñera and Enriquez-Ominami? , the score is Piñera 44 %, Enriquez-Ominami (34 %).
What do these figures tell us?
-That it appears almost impossible that Marco Enriquez-Ominami moves on to the second round. This seems currently about the only near-certainty of this election. One cannot imagine, short of Frei suffering a health problem or accident, that the outsider can move up the necessary 10-12 points and overtake him in the next 3 months.
-That in either scenario for the second round, most Chilean observers and analysts, showing once again the national aversion for precise arithmetic, do not know how to work out percentages. To find out the real result, you have to exclude from the counting the non-voters, blank and null bulletins. These amount to 19 % if Piñera meets Frei and 22 % if he faces Enriquez-Ominami. These percentages are only slightly higher than at previous elections (16 % in the first round in 2005), so a last minute decision from the undecided is unlikely too.
Consequently, the REAL score of Piñera against Frei is in fact 52 to 48 %, a gap that is hardly an “empate técnico” (a stupid expression which means nothing, and whose inventor should have his tongue cut out. Oh how I regret sometimes that the Taliban are not in power here, instead of the present offering). Against Enriquez-Ominami, the gap is even wider (56-44).
If as expected, Eduardo Frei is Sebastian Piñera’s contender in the second round, the election will boil down to getting as many of the Enriquez-Ominami votes are possible. No easy task as his backing is very varied and mostly a protest vote against traditional politicians. However, it will be the key to the result. He has not ruled out a formal pact to that effect with either party.
WHAT IS ON OFFER The debate has been livelier than usual, but it will never be passionate and to the point. Not only are Chileans reluctant to call things by they name, but they have two stupid hang ups which stifle any progress. One is this ambition of “consensus”. Since when do lottery ticket winners share their prizes with those who bought tickets that won nothing? Does the finalist in a football or tennis match cut the cup in two and hand it to the losers? You have elections in order to CHOOSE between two different sets of people, policies and views of the way the country should be run. Maybe a very sophisticated society with little social differences can aim for consensus, but not the country with the region’s second worse income distribution, and polarised politics, where I keep hearing at social gatherings references to “Comunistas de mierda” about anyone with a social conscience. There is no reconciliation in Chilean society, only the outside appearance of it. Winners should take all. Loser should wait for the next election.
The other hang up is the avoidance and distaste of public personal attacks, as if the country was run by some impersonal computer (like the HAL of a A Space Odyssey), with nobody being responsible for anything. Bad management, corruption, stupid declarations, are all made by people, and these people should be singled out and criticised. Ditto when they preach, with the complicity of the Comptroller’s Office and the Constitutional Tribunal, about high morality, when their 14-year daughters are behaving like sluts. It should all be thrown at those responsible. It is time we had a proper gutter press in this country.
In the meantime, the candidates are promising everything, including all that was rejected in the past 20 years (new Constitution, selective voting rights for expatriate Chileans, etc--). Frei has moved to the Left. Piñera appears to go against the conservative end of the Alianza, by supporting such things as the morning-after pill. This has a price, because he has had to promise some high level ministerial portfolios to these Pinochetist remnants, who will find a good way of sabotaging his plans once in the job. His offer of a 40,000 peso (U$ 72) bonus if elected was clever. With most of the population living from hand to mouth most of the time, they will vote for anyone promising more money in a concrete way.
THE BACHELET FACTOR One other factor that the CEP showed up is that personal attributes and perception are playing a major role in voter choice. This may also explain why, six months from the end of her mandate, President Bachelet has a record 72 % backing in the latest poll. This is not transferable to Frei. It is a personal score.
Mind you, Bachelet seems to be less popular abroad. A gala dinner in New York hosted next September 23 by the Council for the Americas, at which she is to be given a “Gold Insigne”, had to cut its prices by 40 % as bookings were seriously lagging. I was the first to spot this matter, which El Mostrador stole from me (I presume leaked through at third party), and published without attribution, but if I had U$ 10 for each time my thoughts were used with no virtual or material remuneration, I would be a rich man.
DO NOT FORGET CONGRESS Whatever candidates promise, and even if they are sincere about it, there is a small matter most people are forgetting. Everything in Chile has to go through Congress. We do not know which shape Congress will be (I have not seen any opinion polls to that end). We could even have a hung Congress or a co-habitation. In the unlikely event that Enriquez-Ominami became president, he would face an overwhelmingly hostile, or at least non-committal Congress. The legislative process would be paralysed (who will notice?, Ed.)
CONCLUSION I still think that Piñera will win the presidency, even though the odds have shortened. Expect his administration to be more to the Right than he is, particularly if the UDI does well in Congress. Foreigners, remember that most of the officials you wine and dine and invite for freebies to your countries (even if they do nothing for you in return) are on contract or consultancy arrangements, “sponsored” by Concertacion parties or politicians, not established civil servants. On March 12, 2010, they will be out of a job and ringing you for a doorman’s post at your embassy. If Frei wins, he will at least try to ingratiate himself more to the population than during his first term. Either of them will face a more complicated political, ethnic and social panorama, with an economy that is no more on automatic pilot in a calm sea (notwithstanding the idiots who fill the media these days about the recession being “over”, but add that unemployment will continue to go up). This reminds me of a saying during the 1980’s debt crisis, to justify harsh IMF programmes: “The people are suffering, but the country is doing much better”. (the patient is dying, but his cold is much better). What is a country if not its people. You can have a country with no resources, no sea outlet, no airline, no railroads, no Central Bank, but what makes intrinsically a country is its people. If they are suffering, you are not doing a good job. Ite, Misa Est.
As We Are Campaigning Full Speed
By Armen Kouyoumdjian
September 8, 2009
Though it has been unofficially going on for as long as one can remember, the election campaign is gathering momentum, though according to the law, the campaign proper cannot start before November 13. Since when were laws respected in Chile, except in country-image discourses? This is probably a pretty unique election in post-Pinochet Chile, due to the existence of a non-negligible third option. This paper does not have the ambition to be a full analysis of the electoral panorama, just over three months before the first round, but a series of pointers and comments with which to follow developments in the remaining months.
THE MAIN CANDIDATES: FREI, PIÑERA, ENRIQUEZ-OMINAMI
THE MECHANICS On December 13, over 8.2 million Chileans will be eligible to vote for the president of the Republic (to serve 4 years from March 11, 2010), 120 deputies (of a similar duration), and 18 senators, who will serve for 8 years. There are actually 38 senators in the upper house, half of whom are renewed each 4 years (alternating odd and even –numbered regions-this time it is the turn of the odd numbers). The first two northernmost regions (XV and I), share the same senators, and threeof the other odd-numbered regions have 4 senators each, but the Metropolitan Region (which also has 4 senators) is not in the race this time, the competition is for 18 seats. There is no XIII region.
The Chilean electoral system is idiosyncratic. Voting is compulsory, but only if you are registered. However, it is not compulsory to register, and though between 10 and 15 % of electors do not bother to turn up, I have never heard of anyone actually being prosecuted for that. There are eternal discussions to reverse the situation by making registration automatic and voting optional, but you know how slowly thoughts are transformed into action down here. Foreigners with 5-year residency can register to vote, and in their case it is not compulsory to actually go to do so, but they cannot be candidates. What a relief!
On this occasion, candidates have until September 14 to register, and voters to September 13. Because only 100,000 bothered to do so (less than the increase in population), candidates asked to have the voter registration date pushed back by a month. The move was swiftly sunk by the government.
It looks almost inevitable that the presidential election will go to a second round, which will take place on January 17, 2010. Deputies and senators have no second round, as their election system is pretty complicated and Byzantine, so designed by Pinochet to avoid overwhelming majorities that could actually get something done in the country. The question that begs an answer is why there should be 5 weeks between the two rounds (other countries manage with as little as a week), considering January 17 is in the midst of the Austral summer and a major irritation for many (it is bad enough that the elections themselves take place 10 days before Xmas, at the same time as year-end exams and graduation festivities at schools and universities. Thankfully, it is only each 4 years)
THE CAST Sticking to the presidential race, the contest will be in the first round between the ruling Concertacion candidate and former president Eduardo Frei, businessman and former politician Sebastian Piñera for the Rightist Alianza, and an independent newcomer in the shape of a young deputy who left the Concertacion’s Socialist Party, Marco Enríquez Ominami, to offer a new option.
There may be one or two other candidates, mostly dissidents from the Concertacion, but their combined force is negligible even as leverage. To the left of the Concertacion, former minister Jorge Arrate is trying to convince a rival, Alejandro Navarro, to join forces with him, whereas a former Christian Democrat party chairman, Senator Adolfo Zaldivar, who was expulsed violently from the party, is being wooed back again (how low does opportunistic hypocrisy get in Chile). The final line-up will be known on September 14, so there is not long to wait. On September 23, those in the race will take place in a televised debate led by one of Chile’s most respected journalists, Alejandro Guillier. We are promised that it will not just be monologues, and the participants will have the right to reply to each other’s statements.
On the parliamentary side, there have been many negotiations and deals, and these will go on until the last moments, including attempts to pick up “street walker” politicians, who have moved parties more often than Liz Taylor got married (a good example of this being Jorge Schauhlson, who used to chair the social-democrat PPD and is now ready to have a go as an UDI congressman, to the extreme Right of the political spectrum).
It is an equal opportunity election. Of the three leading candidates, apart from the unavoidable Spanish ancestry, you have Swiss (some say Austrian) background in Frei, and Enriquez-Ominami’s adoptive grandfather was Japanese. A Chilean genealogist did some research and claims that all three are in fact related. That might explain why they got together and went to Mrs. Rosenberg’s Kosher employment agency to each get a discounted campaign mover and shaker. Thus came on board, with less than a steady foothold, Rodrigo Hinzpeter (for Piñera), Pablo Halpern (damaged goods from the InterAmerican Development Bank, for Frei) and Max Colodro for Enriquez-Ominami). At least two of the three have already shown to be more a liability than an asset, but no candidate wants to face the image cost of firing their campaign manager. Chile is really an open society. After all, a Shiite Moslem, Hosain Sabag, was vice-president of the Christian Democrat party not so long ago.
INTERPRETING THE LATEST POLLS The only opinion poll which really matters in Chile is that carried out by the Centro de Estudios Públicos (CEP). Contrary to other cut-price exercises carried out on the phone by ringing only landlines (which most poorer people do not have), CEP does it in person, and asks face to face, as well as requesting an anonymous ballot paper to be put in a box, like in a real election.
The latest version of the CEP poll last week (there will be one more, probably in November), came up with the following results for the main presidential race (there were many more questions but I am sticking to the fundamentals (answers from registered voters only.):
-To the question: “Who do you THINK will be the next president of Chile?”, the answers were: Piñera (49 %), Frei (33 %), Enriquez-Ominami (6 %).
-To the question: “Who would you LIKE to be the next president of Chile?”, the score was Piñera (33 %), Frei (22 %), Enriquez-Ominami (14 %), and surprisingly, Bachelet, who got 8 % (though she cannot stand, of course).
-To the question: “Who will you VOTE for in the FIRST round?, the results were Piñera (37 %), Frei (28 %), Enriquez-Ominami (17 %).
-To the question: Who will you vote for in the SECOND round if the contest is Piñera vs. Frei?, the result is Piñera 42 %, and Frei 39 %.
-To the question: Who will you vote for in the SECOND round if the contest is between Piñera and Enriquez-Ominami? , the score is Piñera 44 %, Enriquez-Ominami (34 %).
What do these figures tell us?
-That it appears almost impossible that Marco Enriquez-Ominami moves on to the second round. This seems currently about the only near-certainty of this election. One cannot imagine, short of Frei suffering a health problem or accident, that the outsider can move up the necessary 10-12 points and overtake him in the next 3 months.
-That in either scenario for the second round, most Chilean observers and analysts, showing once again the national aversion for precise arithmetic, do not know how to work out percentages. To find out the real result, you have to exclude from the counting the non-voters, blank and null bulletins. These amount to 19 % if Piñera meets Frei and 22 % if he faces Enriquez-Ominami. These percentages are only slightly higher than at previous elections (16 % in the first round in 2005), so a last minute decision from the undecided is unlikely too.
Consequently, the REAL score of Piñera against Frei is in fact 52 to 48 %, a gap that is hardly an “empate técnico” (a stupid expression which means nothing, and whose inventor should have his tongue cut out. Oh how I regret sometimes that the Taliban are not in power here, instead of the present offering). Against Enriquez-Ominami, the gap is even wider (56-44).
If as expected, Eduardo Frei is Sebastian Piñera’s contender in the second round, the election will boil down to getting as many of the Enriquez-Ominami votes are possible. No easy task as his backing is very varied and mostly a protest vote against traditional politicians. However, it will be the key to the result. He has not ruled out a formal pact to that effect with either party.
WHAT IS ON OFFER The debate has been livelier than usual, but it will never be passionate and to the point. Not only are Chileans reluctant to call things by they name, but they have two stupid hang ups which stifle any progress. One is this ambition of “consensus”. Since when do lottery ticket winners share their prizes with those who bought tickets that won nothing? Does the finalist in a football or tennis match cut the cup in two and hand it to the losers? You have elections in order to CHOOSE between two different sets of people, policies and views of the way the country should be run. Maybe a very sophisticated society with little social differences can aim for consensus, but not the country with the region’s second worse income distribution, and polarised politics, where I keep hearing at social gatherings references to “Comunistas de mierda” about anyone with a social conscience. There is no reconciliation in Chilean society, only the outside appearance of it. Winners should take all. Loser should wait for the next election.
The other hang up is the avoidance and distaste of public personal attacks, as if the country was run by some impersonal computer (like the HAL of a A Space Odyssey), with nobody being responsible for anything. Bad management, corruption, stupid declarations, are all made by people, and these people should be singled out and criticised. Ditto when they preach, with the complicity of the Comptroller’s Office and the Constitutional Tribunal, about high morality, when their 14-year daughters are behaving like sluts. It should all be thrown at those responsible. It is time we had a proper gutter press in this country.
In the meantime, the candidates are promising everything, including all that was rejected in the past 20 years (new Constitution, selective voting rights for expatriate Chileans, etc--). Frei has moved to the Left. Piñera appears to go against the conservative end of the Alianza, by supporting such things as the morning-after pill. This has a price, because he has had to promise some high level ministerial portfolios to these Pinochetist remnants, who will find a good way of sabotaging his plans once in the job. His offer of a 40,000 peso (U$ 72) bonus if elected was clever. With most of the population living from hand to mouth most of the time, they will vote for anyone promising more money in a concrete way.
THE BACHELET FACTOR One other factor that the CEP showed up is that personal attributes and perception are playing a major role in voter choice. This may also explain why, six months from the end of her mandate, President Bachelet has a record 72 % backing in the latest poll. This is not transferable to Frei. It is a personal score.
Mind you, Bachelet seems to be less popular abroad. A gala dinner in New York hosted next September 23 by the Council for the Americas, at which she is to be given a “Gold Insigne”, had to cut its prices by 40 % as bookings were seriously lagging. I was the first to spot this matter, which El Mostrador stole from me (I presume leaked through at third party), and published without attribution, but if I had U$ 10 for each time my thoughts were used with no virtual or material remuneration, I would be a rich man.
DO NOT FORGET CONGRESS Whatever candidates promise, and even if they are sincere about it, there is a small matter most people are forgetting. Everything in Chile has to go through Congress. We do not know which shape Congress will be (I have not seen any opinion polls to that end). We could even have a hung Congress or a co-habitation. In the unlikely event that Enriquez-Ominami became president, he would face an overwhelmingly hostile, or at least non-committal Congress. The legislative process would be paralysed (who will notice?, Ed.)
CONCLUSION I still think that Piñera will win the presidency, even though the odds have shortened. Expect his administration to be more to the Right than he is, particularly if the UDI does well in Congress. Foreigners, remember that most of the officials you wine and dine and invite for freebies to your countries (even if they do nothing for you in return) are on contract or consultancy arrangements, “sponsored” by Concertacion parties or politicians, not established civil servants. On March 12, 2010, they will be out of a job and ringing you for a doorman’s post at your embassy. If Frei wins, he will at least try to ingratiate himself more to the population than during his first term. Either of them will face a more complicated political, ethnic and social panorama, with an economy that is no more on automatic pilot in a calm sea (notwithstanding the idiots who fill the media these days about the recession being “over”, but add that unemployment will continue to go up). This reminds me of a saying during the 1980’s debt crisis, to justify harsh IMF programmes: “The people are suffering, but the country is doing much better”. (the patient is dying, but his cold is much better). What is a country if not its people. You can have a country with no resources, no sea outlet, no airline, no railroads, no Central Bank, but what makes intrinsically a country is its people. If they are suffering, you are not doing a good job. Ite, Misa Est.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Marcelo Bielsa Road to Success
Chile's National Team Football manager Marcelo Bielsa gave this past Thursday, Aug 25, 1 90-minute lecture at a business leadership conference. Bielsa, who rarely gives press conferences or in-depth interviews created great expectations from the public and the media, spoke on leadership, norms and principles. The successful manager, with Argentina, clubs and now with Chile, breaks some of myths that linger in the business circles, regarding leadership, discipline, and in times of crisis versus times of triumph. Bielsa took time to explain to the more than 1200 business leaders, retired football players, and media his keys to success.
The Chile boss, allowed for limited recording of his speech, here are some samples of Bielsa's leadership ideas that can be applied in business and daily life.
Bielsa speaks on leadership: a leader should never lie because in times of adversity that lie comes back to haunt the leader; Bielsa says investment should always take place in times of prosperity, never in times of crisis; The manager says the best must always be pushed to excel to be better, to discipline. For lesser talent it is OK to be permissive.
In this outtake: Bielsa talks about Chile's football revolution was not of his making, he says the talent was waiting to be mined; The manager speaks of fear as his greatest motivator, Bielsa says confidence breads relaxation, while fear keeps the mind alert, he says military leaders always believe in what is the worst that can happen and take measures to counter.
The Chile boss, allowed for limited recording of his speech, here are some samples of Bielsa's leadership ideas that can be applied in business and daily life.
Bielsa speaks on leadership: a leader should never lie because in times of adversity that lie comes back to haunt the leader; Bielsa says investment should always take place in times of prosperity, never in times of crisis; The manager says the best must always be pushed to excel to be better, to discipline. For lesser talent it is OK to be permissive.
Source emol.com
In this outtake: Bielsa talks about Chile's football revolution was not of his making, he says the talent was waiting to be mined; The manager speaks of fear as his greatest motivator, Bielsa says confidence breads relaxation, while fear keeps the mind alert, he says military leaders always believe in what is the worst that can happen and take measures to counter.
Source Cooperativa.cl
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Pinochet's lost millions: the UK connection
From the Sunday edition of UK newspaper the Independent, reporter Hugh O'Shaughnessy tells the story of Pinochet's lost millions:
Two-and-a-half years after the death of General Augusto Pinochet, a report by the Chilean police task force charged with investigating money-laundering has claimed that British authorities and the financial sector were complicit in hiding his massive ill-gotten fortune.
Though the Pinochet family protects the details of its wealth with the help of bankers and advisers from Britain and other countries, the pile of assets in cash, gold, government bonds and shares controlled by the family of the late dictator is now believed to amount to as much as £1bn. Read story
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