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The candidate of Chile Vamos (traditional right) for mayor of Santiago, Mario Desbordes, She won this Sunday with 50.6% of the votes over the official candidate and current mayor, the communist Irací Hassler, who obtained 28.5%, when more than 50% of the votes have been counted.
“What we achieved was to convince the people of Santiago that our changes are real, they are forceful,” Desbordes told reporters.
The triumph of Desbordes, who was a minister in the second conservative government Sebastian Piñera (2018-2022) and presidential candidate in the last general elections, it is a blow for the coalition with which President Gabriel Boric governs, made up of his party the Frente Amplio, the Communist Party and the center-left.
“I am happy and proud. “It is a beautiful challenge to lead this commune, the capital of Chile,” proclaimed Desbordes, who was president of Renovación Nacional, one of the three parties that make up the conservative Chile Vamos bloc.
In Santiago Centro, a municipality located in the Greater Santiago Metropolitan Region, no mayor has been re-elected since 1996.
It is the most symbolic mayor’s office in the country and its electoral contest is considered “the mother of all battles”, since it usually predicts what happens in the presidential elections that follow.
The until now mayor, Irací Hasslerwho in 2021 became the first communist leader to become mayor of Santiago Centro, has been hit by the insecurity crisis that affects the country and that has worsened in the capital in recent times.
“I hope that Santiago can continue advancing in policies that have been very relevant for our community, that all the houses that have been taken over by crime and drug trafficking can continue to be recovered (…) Today we have laid foundations to move towards a better commune,” Hasler declared in conceding defeat.
More than 15.4 million Chileans went to the polls this Saturday and Sunday to elect 345 mayors and 16 regional governors in elections considered a thermometer of the 2025 presidential elections.
