Chile's Continuing Protests

Pablo Rubio has a brief post at AULA Blog on why the Chilean protests are continuing. I also talked with Pablo about the protests on my podcast in December. Anyway, I found this part especially interesting:

A prestigious Chilean polling firm, Cadem, reported two weeks ago that 63 percent of the Chilean population approved of the protests and – importantly – 80 percent believe that Chile will be a better country after this critical situation. In any case, the plebiscite in April will take a place in an unstable context, with an uncertain outcome. For the Piñera administration, the challenges seem unlikely to abate, and pressures may surge when the school holidays end in March.

So there is some optimism! In an era where presidents and the public alike are looking to the military at uncomfortable rates, it is nice to see some confidence in institutions to resolve problems even at a time when confidence in the government is low.

On the other hand, this sets a high bar. People are counting on the plebiscite and eventual new constitution to correct problems they've identified. What happens if many people feel they are not corrected even after all that?