Chile in the grip of social turmoil one month after presidential elections

The violent altercations experienced this week during the second anniversary of Chile’s greatest social unrest returned the country to a zone of turbulence and uncertainty a month after the first round of the presidential elections in which seven candidates seek to replace the conservative Sebastián Piñera.

The stage is open, the undecided go between 16%, 20% and 50%, according to three pollsters, and no candidate has for now the electoral capital to win a resounding majority on November 21: they are rebounding for now in the polls, with 21%, the young 35-year-old deputy, Gabriel Boric, representative of the Frente Amplio coalition, and the far-right lawyer José Antonio Kast, of the Republican Party.

The only woman in the race, the Christian Democrat Yasna Provoste, advances solidly to third place and vanishes who until two weeks ago was the strong piece of the government coalition, the right-wing Sebastián Sichel.

Any of these four names can reach the second round on December 19 and although the polls have sounded wrong since 2019, they all coincide in predicting a final definition with Boric.

“The second round is practically a fact. The uncertainty is in who will go to that second round”Declared Mauricio Morales, a political analyst at the University of Talca.

“It seems clear to me that Boric is going to go to the second round, but I do not rule out that there is some competition between Provoste and Kast. It will be necessary to see what happens in the next debates and with 16% undecided”, Asserted Javier Couso, academic at the Diego Portales University (UDP).

The surprising upturn in the last days of Kast, a 55-year-old former deputy who has vindicated the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), coincided with the fall in the polls of Sichel, former president of Banco Estado and candidate of President Piñera, criticized after admitting to having withdrawn 10% of his pension fund during the crisis due to the COVID-19 pandemic despite the fact that he was always against this withdrawal because he considered it “a terrible public policy”.

Fear vs Hope

Since September 24, when northern Chile was the scene of xenophobic attacks against Venezuelan migrants, some polls began to show that support for Kast increased.

His political option has also been favored, according to analysts, by the riots that occurred throughout the country on Monday – in parallel with demonstrations that commemorated the second anniversary of the social outbreak in Chile, on October 18, 2019 – which left two dead, 56 injured and 450 arrested.

“Violence will always favor the candidacy that offers order and restitution of the rule of law. In this case, that of José Antonio Kast”Affirmed Mauricio Morales.

“Sometimes fear mobilizes more than hope. For this reason, it is very important to take into account the context in which the elections are taking place, especially in terms of acts of violence.”He added.

Influence on voters

On behalf of the government, the undersecretary of the Interior, Juan Francisco Galli, attributed the violent excesses of Monday to Boric and Provoste, for supporting and proposing pardons to protesters who are imprisoned and who “they looted, destroyed everything and threw Molotov cocktails”During the Chilean revolt two years ago, he stated.

Boric replied that the government “tries to take political advantage of acts of violence instead of fulfilling its role“Of maintaining order in the country, while Provoste accused Galli of inventing”a bad excuse to save their presidential”.

“Monday’s protests can sway voters. Most likely next week’s polls will indicate if this is consolidating as a trend“Said Raúl Elgueta, doctor in political science and academic from the University of Santiago.

In social networks, calls have already been made to return to the streets next Monday, October 25, when two years of the largest protest in the last 30 years of democracy that was registered during the social outbreak are commemorated.