Long queues to vote in the closest elections in 31 years

The country experienced a social explosion, began to draft a new constitution and dealt with the Govt-19 epidemic, creating a panorama in which elections end in a two-year period in which the most radical proposals appear to be at their best.

Despite some setbacks, the tables started working from the first hour, although in some places there were long queues due to the number of participants and health restrictions, which limits efficiency.

Carmen Gloria Carrillo, a nurse technician who wears a hat and sunglasses to avoid the sun at a place in the city of Santiago, said she hopes young people will come to the polls. “If things are to change, I think it’s important that we all vote,” said Guerrero, 46.

Chilean media estimated that there was an hour-long delay in polling stations across the country.

Outgoing President Sebastian Pinera He was the first public person to vote at a school in the affluent area of ​​Las Cantos in Santiago. “All opinions are important. Vote, vote, we can resolve our differences in a peaceful way, we can vote,” the right-wing president, who thwarted an impeachment attempt this week, asked on camera.

About 15 million voters – out of a population of 19 million – are invited to exercise their right to vote, which has been voluntary in Chile since 2012.

Polling stations will be open until 6:00 pm local time (meanwhile in Argentina) to vote between. Seven candidates for the presidency, all chambers of deputies and half of the Senate, as well as regional councilors.

Representatives of two highly hostile political poles are becoming favorites: a supporter of the Left Broad Front Gabriel Borick, The youngest candidate in history at age 35, and an extreme right-wing lawyer and politician Jose Antonio Cast, 55 and from the Republican Party.

“This is a cycle of integration of a capitalist accumulation model that will now be closed,” Marcelo Mella, a political analyst at the University of Santiago, told AFP.

Voluntary voting and health restrictions, 50% undecided due to epidemics, create the most uncertain situation since the return to democracy after the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).

Borick will vote in his hometown of Punta Arenas, on the shores of the Magellan Strait, 3,000 km south of Santiago; Christian Democratic Party candidate, Yasna ProvosteHe will do so in his hometown of Vallenar, 660 km north of the capital.

The first results of a referendum abroad gave a massive victory to the war in Oceania, with Cast second in Australia and liberal Franco Paris in New Zealand second.

But he, Cast and most of his seven rivals have not been in the political coalition that has divided power since his return to democracy in 1990.

Raல்l Elquட்டாta, a political scientist at the University of Santiago, defined “those who never enter as favorites.”

“It could be argued that they are the last elections of the old cycle because they (politically) will end with a different outcome than they were,” he added.

According to opinion polls, no candidate will get 50% of the vote to secure victory in the first round. Voting is expected to begin on December 19.

Sebastian Chichel, 44, without political affiliation but with the previous move of the Christian Democrats, the representative of the official coalition, has broken down in recent weeks as some MPs have backed Kast.

The professor of the extreme left is also competing Eduardo Art, Progressive filmmaker and politician Marco Enriquez-Ominami And the economist, known as the People’s Party; Franco Paris, A resident of the United States and did not set foot in the country during the campaign due to problems in the Chilean justice system.

According to researchers, youth participation is a key factor.

Since the establishment of the voluntary referendum in 2012, Chile recorded its highest turnout in October 2020, when a large number of young people voted in the referendum – with 78% support – to change the constitution, to change the constitution, social inequalities and business abuses.