THE END OF THE MAPU - translation

A Generation Of Leftist Leaders Moves Off Center Stage

(Ed. Note: The MAPU - a small cadre of well-educated, well-connected Socialist Party (PS) leaders - made their first appearance on Chilean politics in the heady years of the Allende government.

One of their best known members is José Miguel Insulza, who served in all three Concertación governments and who was recently elected head of the Organization of American States.

Another is PS Sen. José Antonio Viera-Gallo, who was recently denied the right to seek reelection after a competing, younger PS wrested the nomination from him.

This essay discusses the MAPU, and an influence they have exercised in Chile’s “transition to democracy” politics that is incommensurate with their numbers. It is written by sociologist/political commentator Eugenio Tironi.)

The Viera-Gallo case has been interpreted as signifying the end of the influence that a generation of Mapu leaders has exercised over Chilean politics in recent decades.

This is a fair interpretation to make. And one that is rejoiced over by those who have been complaining for many years about MAPU’s influence during the transition to democratic rule and their influence on Chilean political life. What remains to be seen are the consequences that their decline will have, especially with respect to the Concertación political coalition.

So where did the dark legend of the MAPU come from?

The Mapu was a small political party formed at the end of the 1960s by Christian Democratic Party youth. The group split up in 1972 and had totally disintegrated by the mid 1980s.

When first formed, the MAPU brought together the cream of the intellectual and professional youth during a era that was formative for our country in almost every respect.

They were there at the beginning of Allende’s Unidad Popular (UP) government, and helped give the UP the imprimatur of the progressive Catholic world they came from, and they worked as intermediaries between the communist party and the socialist party, which were always at each other’s throats. This, plus the participation of their members in key government post in the Allende government, as well as their intellectual competence and their ability to organize their own forces gave them an influence not reflected in their electoral weight.

After the military coup, the influence of the MAPU on the political left grew even stronger. This was partly because the group experienced less repression than other leftist groups.

But, more than any thing else, MAPU activists brought together the conditions necessary to establish bonds of trust between groups whose strong antagonisms had facilitated the collapse of democracy in Chile. The MAPU were the vehicle used by the Chilean left to link up with the Catholic Church, whose role in defense of human rights and support of the return to democracy was vital during the years of the military dictatorship.

This group – which had ample opportunity to organize while exiled from Chile – exerted their influence during a time of renewal in leftist thought and helped construct the intellectual framework that later sustained the transition to democracy. The MAPU activists were also key in the process that reestablished the friendship and collaboration between the old UP and the Christian Democrats, giving rise, finally, to the (now governing) Concertación coaltion.

After 1990 - now working as part of either from the PS or the PPD - the ex-MAPU exercised a fundamental role in the three successive Concertación governments. They constituted a transverse group of people that helped bridge two political cultures that until then had been antagonistic: the social Christians and the social lay people.

The heart of the Concertación coalition is found here, in this group of people. It gave life to the Concertación, making it much more than just a formal agreement between leaders of parties.

This has been MAPU’s legacy: the creation and implementation of the alliance between the left and the Christian Democrats that gave rise to the Concertación as we know it today. And with it, a political culture oriented and based on agreements. And for this, the MAPU deserves homage.

But now things have changed. The bridges have been built. This same Concertación coalition has now become institutionalized. And its success now rests within the parties themselves, not the interconnected relationships of before.

And now Chile’s parties are comfortable with their historic identities: they have renounced the goal of constructing a common political community that capitalized on the transition process. It is the end of the MAPU. Let’s hope it’s not also the death of the Concertación.