Chile’s leftwing government hit by rape scandal

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A rape allegation against a senior official has sparked a crisis for Chile’s leftwing government, sapping support for President Gabriel Boric as the unpopular leader tries to relaunch his presidency midway through his term.

Manuel Monsalve, 59, who was until recently Chile’s security secretary and had been the face of the government’s effort to fight a rise in organised crime, was accused this month of raping a 32-year-old staffer in a hotel room after meeting her for dinner in September.  

Prosecutors said Monsalve had asked Chile’s police force to examine security footage from the hotel before the staffer made the allegation. Monsalve, who has not yet been formally charged, has denied committing any crime, telling a press conference: “I will prove my innocence during the investigation.” 

Critics have accused Boric, a 38-year-old former student leader who took office in 2022 and pledged to lead a “feminist government”, of mishandling the case. 

He took two days to remove Monsalve from his government after learning about the allegation, and then gave a lengthy unplanned press conference on the subject where he read aloud phone messages with Monsalve and clashed with his own adviser.

“Perhaps this could have been done differently . . . but there is not and will not be, nor was there any desire, to hide or postpone the facts,” Boric said at the October 18 press conference.

The vote share for the left fell at local elections on Sunday, and Boric’s approval rating has dropped 7 percentage points since reports of the case emerged to hit a near-record low of 25 per cent, according to figures published by Chilean pollster Cadem on Sunday.

Declining popularity has weakened the minority government’s chances of passing its main pension and tax reforms, or a more recent pledge to legalise elective abortion, analysts said.

“This is a tremendous blow,” said Kenneth Bunker, a Chilean political analyst. “It’s very difficult for such an unpopular president to pass legislation. If he keeps on losing public support, nobody [in the opposition in congress] is going to want to give him anything.”

Rightwing parties gained against the left in Sunday’s elections, winning 121 municipalities — up from 87 in 2021 — in a ballot that analysts see as an indicator of voter intentions before next year’s presidential election.

Monsalve was, until last week, a member of the Partido Socialista, the traditional centre-left party, that formed a coalition with Boric’s young leftwing Frente Amplio and which analysts say is the left’s best hope of prevailing next year.

The approval rating for interior minister Carolina Tohá, Monsalve’s boss and also a PS member, has fallen 11 percentage points to 35 per cent since the allegation, according to Cadem.

The scandal grew over the past week as prosecutors shared details of their investigation into Monsalve, including that he tried to use police to reach out to “the victim’s close circle” before the accusation. Monsalve’s lawyers have denied that he did so.

Cadem reported that 81 per cent of Chileans believe Monsalve abused his power to assault his staffer, and 58 per cent believe the government tried to cover it up.

Paz Zárate, a researcher at Santiago-based think-tank Athena Lab, said the government’s handling of the scandal “confirms that this team is still immature in matters of state, after more than two years in government.”

She added that the case, which follows several corruption scandals affecting both the government and the rightwing opposition, was “chipping away at Chile’s strong rule of law culture, which was what has distinguished us in the region.”