It is very difficult for the impeachment against Piñera to advance, says Chilean journalist

The Chilean Senate will analyze this Tuesday (16) the impeachment of President Sebastián Piñera. For the Chilean journalist Cristian Bofill, in an interview with CNN Radio, the process must not proceed.

“It is very difficult, it needs two-thirds of the senators and the opposition has 24 votes, it will hardly have the five additional votes, to form the necessary 29, with the government parliamentarians,” he said.

According to Bofill, the indictment was “prepared to be voted on on this date”: “It was done at a fast pace because we are 5 days away from the presidential election, for the opposition, it is convenient to vote now.”

Piñera is questioned by revelations from the journalistic investigation Pandora Papers, of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which reveals transactions in tax havens involving global political and business figures.

Among them are documents that appear to outline an agreement regarding the 2010 sale of the Dominga mine, a comprehensive copper and iron project in Chile. At the time, Piñera, a billionaire businessman, was in the opening year of his first presidential term.

Presidential elections

Cristian Bofill sees Chile as a “very polarized” country, especially after what he called a “social explosion” in protests in October 2019.

“We should have two candidates in the second round, one from the far left, Gabriel Boric, and the far right, José Antonio Kast. It’s hard to predict, but Kast should have the advantage,” he said.