Sichel, who defines himself as independent, denies the extreme political options of the left and right. “I am trying to build that liberal identity in Chile, a liberal identity of center“he told AFP in an interview.
44 years old, without party affiliation but with a previous step for the Christian Democracy, gave the surprise on July 18 in the primaries of the pro-government center-right by beating three other candidates against all odds. Among them was the former mayor of the Las Condes commune, who for years led the sector’s surveys.
Without any prior survey placing him at the forefront, Sichel claims his ability to travel through various groups in the political center.
It is former Minister of Social Development of the current government of Sebastián Piñera and President of the State Bank, a position he left to be a presidential candidate, is convinced that Chileans want “moderate” positions after two years of political upheaval due to the social unrest that began in October 2019.
“The world has changed and politicians have to face it,” said Sichel, who in 2013 ran unsuccessfully as a candidate for deputy.
For him, the extremes of left and right stalled in a 1990s logic. “They see two worlds, that binary posture, Cold War. They show that polarization simply and not the subtlety of the complexity of the citizen,” he says.
After his triumph in the primaries, its popularity declined due to a series of “unforced” errors, according to analysts.
After threatening not to support the reelection of congressmen who supported the bill to establish a fourth early withdrawal of pension funds – questioned by the government – he was forced to admit that he himself extracted amounts from his retirement.
He was also questioned for having lobbied for private companies in his role as a lawyer.
Those mistakes made him fall in the polls and helped raise the figure of the far-rightist Jose Antonio Kast, to whom several members of the government coalition have publicly given their support, considering that Sichel does not represent them.
In a controversial press statement on October 26, Sichel stressed that the ruling parties are free to support the candidate they want, but without conditions. “We will not accept the blackmail of those who want me to transform myself into something that I am not: a person from the extreme right“he said, visibly dazed.
Sichel has publicly expanded on the shortcomings he had in his childhood. Unrecognized son, with a mother with alcohol problems and a violent stepfather, he lived in several houses and countries, until his grandfather rescued him and gave him the stability that allowed him to access a scholarship and study law at the Catholic University of Chile, where he began to rub shoulders with the elite.
“I was concerned about social recognition, being accepted by the elite,” Sichel confessed in an interview.
After graduating as a lawyer in 2001, he began an ascending professional career, achieving high positions in private companies that allowed him to access the so-called “Chilean dream” of prosperity.
When he was 30 years old he met his biological father and later decided to change his last name. Until then, his name was Sebastián Iglesias.
Married with three children, he was never related to the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).
“I was never a supporter of ‘Pinocchio’, but neither was I a supporter of a left I believe that it has democratically regressed and validated violence and has become a statesman left, so one tends to feel like an orphan in politics, “he says.
He believes that since 2019, the country is going through “a democratic revolution, a middle class that was formed in the 90s with a country that grew but with a middle class that is bored of an elite that defines the country’s routes.”
Former Catholic -like many Chileans of his generation-, Sichel is in favor of equal marriage, adoption between homosexual couples, bet on gender equality and highlights the role of women remembering his mother, who raised him and his sister alone.
But Sichel admits “having an issue there” with free abortion, because he believes that “life begins at conception”, therefore he supports abortion as it is currently in force in Chile, on three grounds: risk of life, fetal non-viability and violation.
Source From: Ambito
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