ABSTRACT
Since the early 1990s, Chile has been facing an increasing number of corruption cases affecting public institutions and the political class. As Chileans possess a very low level of tolerance for corruption, many have tended to exaggerate the real dimension of the problem. Chile indeed has high standards of public probity, as has been repeatedly confirmed by international evidence. Chileans’ poor structural evaluation of practically every area of government action is also responsible for the fact that Chile’s privileged position in the field of public probity has been undervalued. During Michelle Bachelet’s first government, the ‘Chiledeportes case’ uncovered the systematic syphoning off of resources to illegally finance coalition electoral campaigns and other political party activities. Due to Chile’s strict legislation on financing political campaigns, it was true that Guillier was unable to receive considerable sums of money from the government, banks or private business to fund his candidature.
