Sebastian Piñera, president elect of Chile, has decided to back the reelection of discredited OAS Secretary Jose Miguel Insulza because "It is a State Policy", meaning that the only reason he backs him is that Insulza is from Chile and as a state, no matter how lousy Insulza is, a Chilean president cannot not back him up.
Some of my dear friends are shocked, but why are they that surprised even if the ethics of such support truly suck?
True, Insulza not only is thoroughly undeserving of a second round, but he should be tried in an ethics court if people ever find the courage to create such a necessary international court. From a social democrat defender of Human Rights, Insulza has abjectly come to support Chavez ambitions, including putting up with the insults that Chavez hurled at him. Adding insult to injury he has not been effective even at serving his new master as witness the Honduras debacle at the OAS. Under his tenure the OAS has gone from useless, to ridicule to end as a rather pathetic entity. Nobody can expect that a second term of Insulza will improve things. So why does Piñera support him?
Very simple: local politics! (Remember Speaker Tip O'Neill famous saying? When the Dems were still a great party? All Politics is local!)
Piñera is from the Liberal Right and he is taking office after 20 years of center left rule. Needless to say that the defeated and rather bitter Concertacion is already busy trying to screw him and they have already plenty of excuses, the main one being the not resolved issue of Piñera (and many of his newly designated ministers) to divest of their financial interests before taking office. By supporting Insulza Piñera is in fact doing a major stroke, internally and even externally, even if you think of it as a cynical, unethical and even depraved move.
Piñera silences some of his most vociferous opposition. If he is such a right wing Pinochet heir, how can he support Insulza?
Piñera tells the Concertacion hoi poloi that changes are coming but that he will be respecting the bulk of the Concertacion inheritance. That is why he used the term "state policy".
Piñera offers a deal: let me be and I will let you be (meaning on the financial thingy). He offers the Concertacion a voice to play in internal Chilean politics in case they fell threatened by Piñera (he must be really self assured to take such a risk!)
But also Piñera sends a clear message to the rest of the Americas: "The OAS is worthless. You are the ones that enabled Insulza, you deal with him. If you really want to recover the OAS, PROVE IT! by tossing the scoundrel out!"
And finally Piñera tells us that his interest is Chile and that probably like Alan Garcia of Peru, the international stage has little appeal for him. He is there to rule Chile, to solve its problems and as such it is an additional reassuring message for the Chileans that know how to read in between lines. Kind of following the successful examples of Lagos and Bachelet.
And for us in Venezuela, many thinking that Piñera would land soon in Caracas with the holy water blessed stake to drive it into the bolibanan robolucion, it is a clear reminder that it is up to the Venezuelan people to make the necessary sacrifices to remove Chavez from office. Get that in your heads once and for all guys!