Chile: Transport crisis leads to mass firings

Wed28Mar2007

Chile: Transport crisis leads to mass firings

13:58 H | Topics: Chile - Controversia - Politics

It's been a rough couple of weeks for Chilean president Michelle Bachelet. In what is being referred to as the first real crisis of her presidency, Bachelet made the difficult decision to fire 4 of her ministers as a response to the mishandling of capital city Santiago's new transportation integration system, TranSantiago. This, unfortunately, sets back Bachelet's original plan to "change Chile" by having both genders equally represented in her cabinet, as some of the outgoing ministers are women. And just what has happened with TranSantiago? Well, a debacle that is so bad that it's even had staunch Bachelet supporters calling for the ousting of ministers:

The Transantiago - a wholesale overhaul of Santiago's antiquated transport system - began badly, leaving large areas of the city of 6 million, especially working-class neighborhoods, virtually without transportation. Protests broke out daily, with angry people blocking traffic and clashing with police.

Local television repeatedly showed people fighting for access to scarce buses or to overcrowded subway trains. People often have to walk long distances to reach a bus route.

The annoucement of the cabinet reshuffle came on Monday, and the fact that Bachelet decided to replace more than just the Transportation minister seems to show that she means business:

"the people need solutions, and that's why we have to choose people to lead a new era in which mistakes are not tolerated."

Bachelet has also shown deep emotion around the chaos caused by the TranSantiago project, which left many of the city's less fortunate isolated:

"Things were not done right. It's inexplicable that a transportation system made to improve the city is now a source of difficulty and discrimination.
What has happened in the past few days hurts me profoundly and moreso because it has hit Santiago's poorest the hardest. Nobody deserves this kind of suffering," said the president.

"We need to realize that they have had to withstand the most intolerable difficulties.

With the way the president is talking, it sounds like the situation is a lot worse than what press has reported.

Chile elects a new president in 2008, and many are speculating that how Bachelet handles this situation will be key to whether she gets re-elected. I'm not sure how it looks to Chileans, but to me it looks like she's serious and is moving fast to rectify this huge crisis.

Via / El Mundo and Guardian Unlimited

Image: "Transbroma" via Diego Sepulveda's Flickr page