Chilean elections open a new political scenario in the country

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  • About 15 million Chileans have been called to the polls in elections that will need a second round to meet the next head of state

  • The young leftist Gabriel Boric and the ultra-conservative José Antonio Kast appear as possible rivals on December 13

The Chileans have chosen this Sunday the two candidates who will compete for the presidency next December 13 in a second electoral round. About 15 million voters were called to the polls on a day that the president of the Electoral Service, Andrés Tagle, has described as “quiet and without incident.” The first official results that indicate a trend will not be known until early in the morning, Spanish time. Whatever the final scrutiny, everything indicates that the country will not be much like the one that was configured since 1990, when the democratic transition began. The fight in the second turn will be between two radically opposite political and economic models that will open a new political scenario, different from the most recent past. The fissure started with the social outbreak that hit the country in November 2019.

Chile is a country with very low rates of electoral participation. In 2017, the now very unpopular president Sebastian Piñera he won the elections with a participation of 48% of the votes. The Government spokesman, Jaime Bellolio, has affirmed that this Sunday there has been a greater interest from Chileans, perhaps related to everything that is at stake.

Not in vain, Gabriel Boric, the young candidate of Approve Dignity, the alliance that make up a new left forged in the student protests of the last decade, and the Communist Party, called on society to vote without fear” in this “historical moment”. Boric appeared in the previous polls with a place assured in the second round, but in recent days he has been the subject of a strong media campaign that has had as its central axis fueling the fear of a return of the “communism“, with a rhetoric sometimes related to what happened in this country in the 70’s during the failed attempt to Salvador Allende to build socialism by peaceful means.

Agreements after the elections

If the polls are not wrong, the 35-year-old deputy will fight for the presidency with the far right José Antonio Kast or with Sebastian Sichel, champion of a moderate right. The detail is not minor. Another aspect that will be elucidated in a few hours is the advantage that the winner will gain from who will be his rival in the second round, as well as the support that they will receive from the candidates who have remained the force of the race.

Whatever happens, Boric will need to reach an agreement with the center-left that ruled Chile between 1990 and 2010 without interruption. Your candidate this Sunday, Yasna Provoste, awaited a miracle at the polls. But reality told him that he would have to be the architect of an agreement for December 13 with the I Approve Dignity coalition.

On Monday, analysts will begin to draw conclusions about what will happen in the next dizzying weeks. According to Alex Callís, to know where Chile is heading it will be necessary to know the composition of the future Congressor, that Sunday has been partially renewed.

New Constitution

In this context of high tension and uncertainty, the constituent Assembly that the new Magna Carta that will forever bury the institutionality of Pinochetism must end in a few months. The president of the Constitutional Convention, Elisa Loncon, an academic of Mapuche origin, assured that whoever is finally elected head of state will in fact head a government of “transition & rdquor; because it will begin its functions without the new fundamental text still in force, which must be approved through a new popular consultation, in mid-2022.

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Reference-www.elperiodico.com

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