Chileans go to the polls in an environment of great uncertainty

Chileans will vote on the weekend for who they want the new president to be for the next four years, when there is strong political polarization, an economy showing signs of overheating and a convention drafts a new constitution.

Here are some aspects of the elections that will take place on November 21:

How does the election work in Chile?

The seven registered candidates will be measured in a first round on Sunday, November 21, elections in which the members of the Chamber of Deputies and part of the Senate will also be elected, as well as regional councilors.

If a candidate gets 50% plus one vote, he would directly become the next president. However, given the polarization of the current race, most analysts expect the election to be decided by the December 19 ballot.

Who are the candidates?

Seven candidates will be measured in the presidential elections with representation from across the political spectrum.

According to some opinion polls, the far-right candidate and former congressman Jose Antonio Kast leads the preferences, but in a close dispute with the deputy and former student leader Gabriel Boric, representing a left coalition between the Broad Front and the Communist Party.

With more moderate positions, the center-right official candidate Sebastián Sichel, former minister of Sebastián Piñera, and the Christian democrat Yasna Provoste, current senator of a mining region of the country and who represents the coalition that governed most of the three decades since the return. to democracy in 1990.

Other candidates, who appear with little chance of victory are the far-left professor Eduardo Artés, the centrist Marco Enríquez-Ominami, who is competing for the fourth time, and Franco Parisi, who ran most of his campaign remotely because he is in United States.

Who will win?

Unlike other elections, the polls showed an advantage of more extreme candidates, Kast and Boric, over the traditional conglomerates of the center-right and center-left, which have won since the end of the dictatorship.

However, many experts have stressed how inaccurate the surveys have been in recent processes. Both Boric and Sichel prevailed in primaries against two popular capital mayors, who the polls gave as sure winners.

The director of the political consultancy Tresquintos, Kenneth Bunker, said that there is a change in the political landscape in the country that breaks with the scheme of the two traditional dominant coalitions, when there is an increase in social demands after the social outbreak at the end of 2019 .

“With so many problems, candidates must offer solutions that are extreme and that is why we have leading two candidates who are rather extreme,” he said.

“What I would say is clearer is that Kast wins or Boric wins and that there would probably be a second round,” he added.

Legislative influence

Senators and deputies will also be elected in the elections. In an eventual second round, the result of the formation of the new parliament will also lead to a negotiation of alliances that allow the contenders’ government proposals to be made viable.

What will happen to the new constitution?

Whoever the next president is will have a referendum in his first year of government for Chileans to approve or reject the text of the new constitution. If approved, it will also have to accept the legal changes that the legislation considers.

Bunker believes that the winner of the election will also mark the way in which the Constitutional Convention will legislate and the tenor of the changes that will be proposed.

What does the election mean for the copper industry?

Chile is the world’s largest copper producer and the industry represents an important part of its income, both from the state company Codelco and from the contribution of private multinationals.

Experts point out that the candidates have given little relevance to the sector – already in uncertainty due to the debate in Congress on a royalty project – and speak of more conceptual approaches such as the need to do sustainable mining.

“Mining took a back seat because the candidacies are focused on other issues that are more critical from the electoral point of view,” said Francisco Acuña, CRU senior consultant.