Until 2:00 p.m. on Wednesday, September 14, Lucía Dammert was the chief adviser to President Gabriel Boric and would travel to the United Nations General Assembly in New York as part of the presidential delegation. But on the followingnoon of that day she found out regarding a note from Third that would accelerate the plans that the sociologist and her boss, the President, had already determined: upon returning from the trip, Dammert would leave his post.
“It would not be strange (for Dammert) assume another role in the short term ‘for this second period’, commented a minister in off the recordin the note titled “Movement of bishops in La Moneda: on which foot does Miguel Crispi reach the Second Floor and Dammert’s withdrawal”. The phrase dislocated the former head of advisers.
Early the next day, Dammert arrived at La Moneda to formalize his departure. Puzzled, she entered the President’s office-just when Gabriel Boric was meeting with the chancellor, Antonia Urrejolato try to put out the fire that he started by not accepting the credential letters of the Israeli ambassador- and he submitted his resignation. As an immediate effect, Lucía Dammert got off the trip to New York in which she had initially asked to extend her stay to carry out advisory work.
The leak, according to what people around Dammert say, affected him for two reasons: first, because she didn’t like the anonymous way cabinet members referred to her in the media, and the second, because it revealed a decision that had already been made, but that had been postponed until following the UN. And, despite the fact that the sociologist took charge of a large part of the coordination of the agenda of the trip to the United States, she would have explained to the President that she did not want people to start saying that she was going to go on tour.
In La Moneda the issue of resignation has been treated with secrecy. And the parties of the ruling party have not been given a greater explanation either. A former socialist says: “To the good listener, few words. She was asked long ago, and the pressure from the Democratic Revolution for Miguel Crispi to take office was greater”.
Although Dammert managed to influence the president’s decisions at the beginning of the administration and remained as one of his important earmuffs, the relationship he established with Boric was not able to extend it to the other members of the Presidency team. Six months following taking office, her relationships at La Moneda were already worn out; perhaps the most important is the harmony that he did not have with the chief of staff, Matías Meza-Lopehandía, whose dispute over influence with the President was evident to the rest of the inhabitants of that sector of La Moneda. That was why his departure did not attract too much attention from the members of the Second Floor.
The September 6 cabinet change sealed things. days following this, Dammert and Boric had a deep conversation. In it, the President told him that it was time to refocus the original design of the Second Floor to give it a more political character and management. Dammert, understanding that this was not his profile, took on what his boss wanted to tell him and made the job available. By then, the President was already working on a new design for the Second Floor in which included former undersecretary Miguel Crispi (RD) in a leadership role. The former deputy had left the Undersecretary for Regional Development in the last cabinet change so that his place would remain in the hands of PC Nicolás Cataldo (PC), who saw his transfer to the Undersecretary of the Interior frustrated. when his old tweets once morest the police appeared.
In that tense change of cabinet, in La Moneda the President and Minister Camila Vallejo (PC) they assumed direct responsibility for the failed appointment of Cataldo, to whom they are very close, and decided to put the pieces together. In that play, there were several who were opposed to moving Cataldo in the Subdere, among them Lucía Dammert. But with significant pressure from the PC -so much so that Teillier would later reveal that eThe President asked him how he might make up for it– the decision was already made. Now the mess moved to RD, who, annoyed by Crispi’s departure from a powerful Subdere, went for the leadership of the Second Floor. Reason had two layers: one, which they did not want Crispi to be in a secondary position on the Second Floorand two, they needed Crispi to have a place within the political committee, since its main figure, Giorgio Jackson, would no longer be at that table when leaving Segpres. And for that, the head of the advisory team was the way.
According to La Moneda, Dammert has transmitted that was the victim of an “internal political operation”. Of course, the sociologist separates Boric from the operation that she accuses once morest her. Others close to Dammert point out that the ministers Jackson and Vallejo would have been promoters of the idea of giving the Second Floor a more political profile, changing the role of Dammert.
That Thursday the 15th, when the resignation was already official, a second blow came. Hours later, the media outlet Interferencia would publish that Dammert’s departure had to do with the fact that “the FBI requested his voluntary testimony in a drug trafficking case involving Genaro García Luna, former Secretary of Public Security of Mexico,” and that she would occupy the last days of her stay in New York to give his testimony. The data of the report was categorically denied by Dammert through Twitter, and by the Foreign Ministry and the Presidency through official communications.
“The Chilean government has consulted the United States government, through official means, regarding the veracity of the facts described in the publication by the media outlet Interferencia (…) After receiving a response to the aforementioned request, the Chilean government confirms that said information is false.”, declared the Executive this Wednesday at 12.46.
Dammert, por su parte, he will not give interviews or statements to the media until he defines the legal path he will take. In his environment they assure that the publication affected him in a particular way, because beyond evident differences with some government actors -and that he even has some internal enemies-, he never thought he would receive “attacks and slander” like the ones that have come to him following the report.
“The magnitude of the personal and professional damage generated is enormous, which is why I have decided to take the necessary legal action to expose its intent. I want to thank those who have supported me in this difficult time, ”the sociologist published on her Twitter account, and even Boric himself came out to defend her.
“All my support and solidarity to Lucía Dammert once morest the dirty campaign of which he has been a victim”, tweeted from the United States.
It was in the first cabinet council, in the Casona Cañaveral, when President Boric announced that Lucía Dammert would take over as his chief adviser. It was the hot January 28 last. The sociologist had joined the campaign as coordinator of the programmatic team, and she had been key to the second round, when security issues – Dammert’s expertise – were one of Boric’s main flanks.
Since March 11, according to their team of advisers, their role was appointed to advise the President on international matters -one of the initial definitions of the Second Floor approach was “to take care of the international image of the President”-, and work directly with Boric with minutes, speeches, content, inter-ministerial coordination and daily support. “She was very concerned to support him in his routine, his greatest asset was his closeness to the President. She was more like another chief of staff than a chief adviser. She gave the impression that her role was not very clear, because He did not have much relationship with the parties and did not participate in the political committee with them either.”, says a member of the team who watched her work.
Also, Dammert sought to stay away from issues related to the Ministry of the Interior from the beginning, due to the differences she had with the team of undersecretary Manuel Monsalve (PS) since she was in the team of Mahmud Aleuy (PS) during the second government of Michelle Bachelet. There, Dammert generated insurmountable distances that were not even tried to be fixed during this administration.
But where it did influence this past was in Foreign Relations. His role, together with that of Carlos Figueroa, who is also on the Second Floor, was questioned from the beginning by the Foreign Ministry. The differences were made explicit at the Summit of the Americas in June, when the Socialist Party came out to shield Minister Antonia Urrejola (PS) before the internal claims of the portfolio manager for the little autonomy to perform in the position before the figure of the presidential advisers.
That is why now in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ministry workers assure, the change of focus of the Second Floor was seen with joy, since They estimate that Crispi will focus on political work and will “let them do it.” And, it seems, they are not wrong: Miguel Crispi will participate today in a political day with the members of the Broad Front directivesparliamentarians and ministers, to discuss the contingency.
Dammert, for his part, expressed to Boric his willingness to keep in touch and help him in whatever was necessary. To those close to him, yes, he warned them that she is no longer linked to politics.
“He told us that he will return to his old life.” Namely, specific consultancies and the academy.