International
“The Bukele recipe is not applicable to Santiago,” says its elected mayor, Mario Desbordes
Former minister and conservative deputy Mario Desbordes (Los Andes, 1968), dealt one of the most painful blows to the government of the progressive Gabriel Boric almost a month ago when it was made by more than 20 points of difference with the Mayor’s Office of Santiago de Chile, considered the ‘jewel of the crown’.
A little more than two weeks after taking office, on December 6, Desbordes attributes his resounding triumph against the communist Irací Hassler, who was seeking reelection, to his “moderate” profile, to the “gray hair” and to the “experience”.
“Santiago is not a commune for the tougher right,” he admits in an interview with EFE in an office in the Bellas Artes neighborhood, which has been his campaign bunker in recent months.
Old acquaintance in Chilean politics, he has done almost everything: he was undersecretary of Investigations in the first term of Sebastián Piñera (2010-2014) and minister of Defense in the second (2018-2022), presidential pre-candidate and deputy.
He was also an agent of the Carabineros police force and presided over National Renewal, one of the three parties that make up the Chile Vamos coalition.
Governing the historic center of Santiago, a commune of 600,000 inhabitants, which in recent years has become very multicultural and where no mayor has been re-elected since 1996, is possibly one of the biggest challenges of his career.
The Santiago de Chile that receives Desbordes
Desbordes inherits a city that is going through one of its worst moments, with high crime rates and great deterioration of public spaces, where life on the street ends almost when the sun goes down and countless businesses have closed.
The problems come from afar, but they were aggravated with the protests of 2019 and the pandemic to the point that, regrets Desbordes, “the center of Santiago has moved emotionally to Providencia,” the adjacent neighborhood.
“The dirt, the scratches on the walls, prostitution in the Plaza de Armas in the morning, street commerce… There is a whole set of incivilities… I think Santiago looks a lot like New York in the early 90s,” he admits.
In 2023, Santiago recorded a total of 66 homicides, becoming for the fifth consecutive year the commune with the most victims in the country, and a homicide rate of 12.3 per 100,000 inhabitants, double the national average (6.3), according to the Prosecutor’s Office.
Despite the fact that more and more voices call for a heavy hand and look towards El Salvador, Desbordes assures that “the Bukele recipe is not applicable” because “Chile has another reality.”
Anyway, the elected mayor asks “to be very careful about criticizing Bukele without being in the shoes of Salvadorans who can only now go out on the street quietly.”
“I am not a friend of criminal populism that states that everyone has to go to jail and put a tank in every corner, nor of criminal goodism, which says that crime is a victim of us and in the end the bad guys are us. I think there is a middle ground,” he emphasizes.
“Clean, illuminate and paint”
That intermediate, in his opinion, is the so-called “Theory of Broken Windows”, the same that former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his Chief of Police, William Bratton, applied in New York three decades ago and that says that if there is a broken window and it is not fixed, the rest end up being destroyed.
Desbordes proposes, in that sense, “to clean, illuminate, paint, put cameras, work with the community and recover the presence of the State,” in such a way that the city “is an uncomfortable place for those who infringe.”
In a conciliatory tone that contrasts with the political tension that Chile is experiencing, the elected mayor has already met with the Boric Government and is convinced that the solution also involves working in a coordinated manner with the different administrations, even if they are in “the ideological antipodes.”
“One of the complaints of the citizens is that politicians are dedicated to fighting like cat and dog and there are never agreements. When citizens lose confidence in politics and politicians, they are more likely to vote for populist and authoritarian people,” he says.
Representative of the so-called “social right”, the most moderate soul within Chile Vamos, Desbordes says that his reference is the former German Chancellor Angela Merkel or the Popular Party in Spain and that he is not in favor of radicalizing the coalition to avoid the flight of votes towards the thriving ultra-right.
“We cannot lose the center. Our main adversaries are the Broad Front (of Boric) and the Communist Party. That’s where the cultural and political struggle is.”
International
U.S. health authorities report mutation of avian flu virus in Louisiana patient
The avian flu virus mutated inside the first seriously ill patient in the United States, according to the country’s health authorities. However, they assured that, so far, no person-to-person transmission of the virus has been identified in this patient, who is hospitalized in Louisiana.
Scientists warned that while it is concerning because mutations could make the virus potentially more transmissible between humans, they would be alarming if found in animal hosts or in the early stages of infection or symptom onset, which would facilitate the spread to close contacts.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have identified at least 65 human cases of avian flu in the United States, with more than half (36) reported in California, including the country’s first child infected with this virus.
CDC analysis of the Louisiana patient identified mutations in the hemagglutinin gene, which were not found in the samples from infected poultry at the source of the outbreak. This suggests that the changes emerged as the virus replicated in the seriously ill patient.
International
José Mujica’s recovery continues with successful stent procedure in esophagus
Former Uruguayan President José Mujica underwent surgery on Friday, during which a stent was successfully placed in his esophagus. In April, a malignant tumor was discovered in the area, which was treated with radiation therapy.
“We did it today because the situation required it at this moment. This will allow him to continue eating orally, continue receiving food as before, and maintain his recovery at home,” explained his personal doctor, Raquel Pannone, in a press conference.
She also took the opportunity to explain how the stent works.
“It is a prosthesis. A device placed inside the esophagus that self-expands. This metal device adheres to the walls of the esophagus and remains there, expanding the esophagus’ opening and allowing the passage of food,” she detailed.
International
Preliminary Investigation Suggests ‘External Interference’ in Azerbaijan Airlines Plane Crash in Kazakhstan
Azerbaijan Airlines stated on Friday that the plane that crashed in Kazakhstan experienced “external, physical, and technical interference,” based on preliminary investigation results, fueling speculation that the aircraft may have been struck by Russian defense missiles.
The Embraer 190 aircraft, operated by Azerbaijan Airlines and carrying 67 people, was en route from Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, to Grozny, the capital of the Chechen Republic in Russian territory, when it crashed near Aktau, a port on the Caspian Sea in western Kazakhstan, far from its intended route. The crash resulted in the deaths of 38 people, according to Kazakh authorities.
In response to the incident, Azerbaijan Airlines announced the suspension of its flights to several Russian cities, as the “preliminary results of the investigation into the Embraer 190 crash… point to external, physical, and technical interference.”
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