Chile: Leftists Pop Champagne to Celebrate Death of Moderate Ex-President Sebastián Piñera

Chilean leftists engaged in acts of public disorder and small riots on Wednesday in celebration of the tragic death of moderate President Sebastián Piñera the day before in a helicopter crash.

Police arrested at least one individual in the disturbances.

Piñera, who served as president of Chile from 2010 to 2014 and again from 2018 to 2022, died on Tuesday evening while piloting his personal helicopter. The helicopter crashed into a lake near the southern Chilean town of Lago Ranco. Piñera was accompanied by three members of his family, all of whom survived the crash and were able to swim to safety.

Chilean President Sebastián Piñera gives a press conference at La Moneda presidential palace in Santiago, Chile, Monday, Oct. 4, 2021. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)

Upon news of his death, a group of almost a hundred Chilean leftists flocked to Plaza Italia to “celebrate” his death. The group set up bonfires and barricades in the sector, causing interruptions in the local flow of traffic. Some of the participants chose to celebrate with alcoholic beverages and scribbled graffiti on the square’s monument, branding the moderate president a “murderer” and accusing him of “genocide” due to the Chilean government’s tepid response radical leftist riots in 2019.

“Many people have said that we can not celebrate. Many people have said that we can not rejoice because a sack of shit died in Chile,” one of the protesters was recorded saying as she opened a bottle of champagne. “There is no justice, he wanted them all to die, damn miserable.”

Reports of the attempted looting of a nearby commercial establishment surfaced amidst the leftists’ celebration, prompting the deployment of the Carabineros national law enforcement gendarmerie, who dispersed the assembly by Wednesday evening.

According to local media, the group of leftists chose Santiago’s Plaza Italia, also known as Plaza Baquedano, as the center of their celebrations against Piñera due to its significance as the epicenter of a series of riots that erupted in 2019 against a $0.04 public transit fare hike proposed by Piñera’s government.

Although Piñera would eventually desist on the proposed hike, the far-left protesters continued to burn major sectors of Santiago in 2021, eventually escalating their demands to calls for a new constitution for Chile that would replace its current one. The current constitution was implemented during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet but has been modified 31 times since its original enactment.

Demonstrators march with posters depicting Chilean President Sebastián Pinera during a teachers’ protest against the government, outside La Moneda presidential palace in Santiago, on October 13, 2021. (CLAUDIO REYES/AFP via Getty Images)

Piñera, a moderate “center-right” president, eventually agreed to the far-left protesters’ demands, initiating the lengthy proceedings that would place Chile in a convoluted, four-year failed constitutional process.

The constitutional process, which continued under Chile’s far-left current President Gabriel Boric, first produced a far-left core legal structure that failed to pass in September 2022 after 61.86 percent of the electorate voted against it.

Demonstrators supporting the reform of the Chilean constitution celebrate while waiting for the referendum official results at Plaza Italia square in Santiago on October 25, 2020. (PEDRO UGARTE/AFP via Getty Images)

On the second attempt, the Chilean electorate voted to elect a majority conservative constitutional council during March 2023’s elections. The conservative constitutional proposal also failed to pass in December’s election. President Boric then announced that his administration will not attempt a third draft constitution.

The Chilean government is presently preparing state funeral proceedings to honor Piñera. Boric is scheduled to honor his predecessor at the Chilean Presidential Palace on Friday before a funeral Mass at the Cathedral of Santiago. After the Mass, authorities have scheduled his funeral and burial at the Parque del Recuerdo cemetery in Huechuraba.

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.