Chile begins counting votes amid criticism for lack of transportation

The vote count for the crucial ballot in Chile began this Sunday after the closure of more than 2,500 voting centers and amid a barrage of criticism against the Government for not having enabled a more efficient public transport service.

The first preliminary data will be predictably from 7:00 p.m. local time (22:00 GMT) and the result is expected to be very tight.

The latest polls gave the winner, by a very narrow margin, the young left-wing deputy Gabriel Boric against the far-right José Antonio Kast, but experts indicate that the results will depend largely on participation, which in the first round of 21 November barely reached 50%.

In the vote abroad, which is not representative, the former student leader prevailed in most countries, with the exception of China, where Kast swept.

They are the candidates with the most opposite proposals in the history of Chilean democracy: Boric defends a welfare state with a feminist and environmentalist accent and arouses fears in the markets due to his alliance with the Communist Party, while Kast is a fervent Catholic who seeks maintain the current neoliberal model, lower taxes and confront irregular migration with a heavy hand.

“I have gone out to vote to defend our rights and improve our life. Today things can start to be different, ”young Diana González told Efe, leaving a polling place in the coastal Viña del Mar.

The taxi driver Roberto Paulsen, for his part, recognized Efe in the capital’s La Reina neighborhood that he voted “by covering his nose with his fingers” because he does not like any candidate and “Chile is a country of the center and not of extremes.”

Government boycott?

The elections, the most momentous since the return to democracy in 1990, were marked by endless complaints from citizens who waited for hours for public buses to arrive at the voting centers.

The situation was especially critical at noon and in the peripheral areas of the capital, where the mayors took out municipal vehicles to transport residents.

Both candidates criticized the situation, although from Boric’s command they went further and accused the government of the conservative Sebastián Piñera of “boycotting” the elections.

“Given the Government’s operation to limit public transportation in favor of its candidate, we call for the organization of taxis, buses and shared cars to transfer voters”, said the leftist’s campaign manager, Izkia Siches.

The Government acknowledged that there were “congestion episodes” that affected the “fluidity of public transport routes”, but ruled out any type of intentionality.

“We deny those who are trying to install a fake about the size of a cathedral by saying that something has not been done so that people can go to vote. We have 75% more buses than a normal Sunday “added the government spokesman, Jaime Bellolio.

Among the main challenges for the future will be to channel the social crisis that continues to exist since the 2019 protests, lead the implementation of the norms of the new Constitution and face the economic challenges left by the pandemic.