Santiago: Chilean President Sebastian Pinera on Saturday announced a major government reshuffle, a day after more than one million people took to the streets in a massive protest for economic and political change.
“I asked all ministers to resign in order to form a new government and to be able to respond to these new demands,” he said in an address to the nation, adding that a highly controversial state of emergency might be lifted Sunday if “circumstances permit.”
The military also announced that an overnight curfew would be lifted. “We are in a new reality,” Pinera said. “Chile is different from what it was a week ago.”
The government has been struggling to craft an effective response to deadly protests that were sparked by a rise in metro fares but fuelled by a growing list of economic and political demands that include Pinera’s resignation.
The breadth and ferocity of the demonstrations appear to have caught the government of Chile — long one of Latin America’s richest and most stable countries — off guard.
For the past week, pent-up anger erupted in demonstrations over a socio-economic structure that many feel has left them by the wayside.
On Saturday afternoon, however, the military presence in the capital was visibly reduced, even as a hundred protesters gathered in front of the presidential palace before being dispersed by water cannon.
Across the capital and elsewhere in the country, demonstrations materialized only sporadically, just one day after the mega-protests of more than a million people.
Five of Santiago’s seven metro lines — which usually carry three million people per day — are now partially operating, and 98 per cent of
buses were functional. Shops had reopened.
A thousand volunteers gathered downtown to clear protest debris and scrub walls covered in slogans such as “Chile woke up” and “Pinera resign.”
Pinera, who assumed office in March 2018, had already shuffled his cabinet twice in 15 months as doubts grew about a slowing economy and his leadership. — AFP
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