By Meritxell Freixas |
Santiago de Chile (EFE).- For the first time since the end of the dictatorship, Chilean political parties will compete with unprecedented alliances in the constituent elections. The Socialist Party (PS) leaves its natural center-left coalition to join the bloc formed by the communists. And the leftist Broad Front, while the right-wing bloc wages a particular struggle.
Both the ruling party and the opposition compete on various lists and divided to reach fifty seats that will be distributed equally among 25 men and as many women. The future members of the Constitutional Council in charge of the second attempt to draft a new Constitution from a draft prepared by a committee of experts.
The right is divided into three formations: the traditional one competes with the name of Chile Seguro, the emerging extreme right is called the Republican Party. And the emerging populist is the People’s Party. These three political forces have already made their debut in the 2021 presidential elections, but both the ultra-right and the populist conservatives are attending constituent elections for the first time.
Most experts agree that this is an electoral event with an unpredictable result, because there are various factors that condition it:
“The great feature of this election is that it has a compulsory vote (for the first time since 2012) at a time when a large part of the population feels a great lack of interest in politics and rejects the system and the traditional parties,” explains EFE the academic Isabel Castillo, from the Faculty of Government of the University of Chile.
The scenarios are open and uncertain, but several polls point to the victory of the conservative bloc. However, the big question is, according to analysts consulted by EFE, how much will the seats of the three right wing add up. If they reach three fifths (thirty councilors) they will control the Council completely.
“A pivot” for the government alliance
Unity for Chile is the name of the list of the socialists and the forces furthest to the left of the government coalition, including the party where President Gabriel Boric is a member. This formation will concentrate a good part of the attention on election night.
And this because there is the paradox that the partners of the government alliance compete among themselves, after several weeks of negotiations that failed to reconcile the two souls of the coalition and that culminated in the separation of the socialists from the conglomerate that historically have belonged
“The Socialists play a kind of pivot to maintain the government alliance in the midst of an electoral dispute,” the political scientist from the Diego Portales Vicente Inostroza University told EFE.
Socialist Mauricio Orellana, a member of the previous Constitutional Convention, defends his party’s strategy: “we must not only look for a new Constitution, but also for governability in the coming years. And this will only be achieved if the left is able to unite ”, he told EFE.
No risk of “break” in the government coalition
“If the result of Unity for Chile is not bad, probably the alliance between the Socialist Party and the Broad Front will deepen,” the director of the School of Journalism at the University of Santiago, René Jara, told EFE. However, Castillo sees it as “unlikely” that the ruling party will obtain electoral gains with this formula.
The bet of the two lists, defended until the last moment by the Social Democrats of the Party for Democracy, arose so that the traditional center left, whose list is called Todos por Chile, manages to seduce moderate voters. But all the surveys indicate that this segment of voters will opt for other preferences.
If the sum of the two lists falls below 21 of the 50 seats in contention. “The center left will be somewhat weakened, but not so much that the government alliance breaks down,” according to Inostroza. The reason is that, whatever happens, both the Minister of the Interior, the Social Democrat Carolina Tohá, and the Socialist Party are an anchor of the Government of Gabriel Boric.
“Let the agreements be imposed”
On the opposite side, the right disputes the leadership of its sector. And, probably, the possibility of becoming the most voted political sector in the country.
The extreme right of José Antonio Kast, the presidential candidate who was defeated in the second round by Gabriel Boric in 2022, and the People’s Party, led by its unpredictable leader Franco Parisi, who came third in the presidential elections against all odds, have “ some advantages in this process”, says Isabel Castillo.
Among these advantages are a social and political climate that favors “new or outsider” parties, which are also “positioned” brands and recognized by voters because they do not appear in coalitions, and which have also distanced themselves and excluded themselves in the same way. in which this new attempt to elaborate a Constitution for the country was forged, something that many consider to be “an agreement of the elites.”
“In recent weeks, support for the Republican Party has been growing and support for the Chile Seguro coalition has decreased. It is not that they grab new voters, but that they are eating up the traditional right”, adds the academic.
Regardless of who wins this Sunday, for the former member of the now extinct Constituent Convention Hernán Larraín, from the center right, the key after the failure of the previous process now is that “there is (the possibility of) the crossed veto and that the need to negotiate and reach agreements”.