The polls this time did not fail. The second presidential round will bring to the ring two different visions of the country, perhaps the most opposite views of this election, which could further polarize the scenario, with the absence of the center.
Although in Approve Dignity they assumed this voting scenario with José Antonio Kast, the truth is that the hopes were placed on Gabriel Boric who would pass with the most votes to the second part of this process. Until the closing of this edition, Kast surpassed Boric by 2.6%, the deputy not managing to reach 30% of the votes nor his transforming project, which would be more in tune with the demands raised on October 18, 2019.
In fact, in a quick review, Kast managed to surpass the votes of the Chile Vamos primary, while Boric lowered the performance of what he obtained Approve Dignidad in his primary.
The transversal reading in the political sectors is that the second round will be more polarized and that what is at stake is transcendental, and goes beyond the one that governs: whether or not the constituent process is viable, one of the most relevant processes of the In recent years, to end or not with the Constitution gestated in dictatorship, and that could generate friction with a sector of the right.
This, because JA Kast has shown that, in a possible government of his, the new Constitution could be in danger. Although he has said that if a good proposal comes out of the Constitutional Convention (CC) he would support it, he has also been emphatic in pointing out that “if the project is bad and I am elected President, clearly I will work so that in the exit plebiscite the Rejection “, an option that he also promoted for the entry plebiscite.
His position has been one of constant criticism of the Convention and in this sense he even maintained that the work carried out by the instance makes them predict a bad result. He echoed controversies such as fake news regarding the exclusion of the Republic of Chile concept.
On the other hand, Approve Dignity has transmitted that it will give all the guarantees so that the new Magna Carta is viable and that the new Government adapts to the new norms, also considering that said bloc achieved a good election of constituents, especially the Broad Front , which managed to install a certain hegemony within the CC. That is why they believe that a successful constituent process will also have positive effects on the bloc.
Another of the edges is that many see that one of the great tests that both candidates will have will be to summon the center, and especially that unknown world of Franco Parisi’s voters. But this political fracture in two, which will confront two faces of Chile, is also accompanied by a territorial fragmentation that the votes evidenced.
This is what the analyst Tomás Duval put it, for example, who argued that “we are going to be in a tremendously divided country, with two very different projects. But also territorially divided, and that is a tremendous issue. Parisi wins in northern Chile Boric in the urban centers and Kast in the south. It is a very new question for us, but I find it a very interesting phenomenon. “
And although the phenomenon is new, it was not surprising, since various political sectors agreed that the candidate of the Christian Social Front managed to capitalize on the vote of the Southern Macrozone with this handling of the concept of order, non-violence and the militarization of the zone, and also part of the north, with his discourse on irregular migration.
For the director of the School of Government and Communication of the Central University, Marco Moreno, “it is not only a right-left polarization, but it is also affective.” In his opinion, Kast “managed to understand this kind of counter-outbreak in the country, in a sector of the population that looks with concern at what happened with the social outbreak. He captures this climate and turns it into a story, of us against them”. “He presses the keys of fear of insecurity, fear of migrants and that gives him a certain electoral performance,” added Moreno, who considered that, on the other hand, Boric could not make that reading.
However, analysts agreed that the voting in the electoral process revealed a change in the political cycle, where the two traditional conglomerates left the “front line” of politics (Chile Vamos and the former Concertación), giving way to new political spaces, such as the Republican Party, I Approve Dignity and even the People’s Party.
“If one judges by the result and the performance of the New Social Pact and the vote taken by Yasna Provoste, one could deduce this idea that there is a collapse of the traditional coalitions,” Moreno pointed out, adding that “what ends dying is the binominal. The candidacies of Kast and Parisi end up breaking the logic that Chile had in the last 30 years. “
Parisi’s surprise and challenges in the opposition
Franco Parisi never arrived in Chile, nor did he vote. He was the remote candidate and that is why not many believed in him, despite the fact that in the last election he exceeded 10%. Although he did not advance candidate Sebastián Sichel by much – a little less than 10,000 votes -, he remained with the third place, also putting uncertainty about how his voters will act in the second round: if they will support Kast, Boric or not vote.
“The Parisi vote must be read as a vote to punish politics,” emphasized political analyst Marco Moreno, who also emphasized that the poor performance of the opposition also influenced.
In the rest of the political forces they considered that it is an anti-party vote, against the establishment, of people who seek to distance themselves from traditional politics, and to distance themselves from the logic of the right and the left, which has been Parisi’s great hook for his adherents. This bag of votes is the one that could set the course for the second round, given the uncertainty about what the Parisi voter is like, how he would act in the ballot and whether – also in Congress – he will build bridges with the right or the left.
Both Kast and Boric, in fact, included these voters in their closing remarks, inviting them to be part of their electorate in the second round. In the case of Kast, he did not hesitate to summon all political sectors. During his campaign, this call was marked by the concept of anti-communism.
In the case of Boric, he also made an open call, however, in the Christian Democrats they were not clear in picking up that glove, unlike the PS and the PPD, which came out to support him quickly. Both sectors of the DC and the former candidate, Yasna Provoste, did not give open support to Boric, which – according to some in Nuevo Pacto Social – is explained by the tensions that the phalanx had with Approve Dignity since the beginning of the campaign. The president of the DC, Carmen Frei, for example, said that they would not give a blank check. One of the doubts that some in this sector have is whether or not this election will break the already weakened ties of the historic DC-PS relationship and if these results, what the citizens said, give rise to an already incipient reconfiguration of the center-left. .
In the former Concertación, they are critical of the bloc’s dealings with them and their governments, but they also questioned the tone of Gabriel Boric’s speech. In the opinion of a parliamentarian from that bloc, the also deputy “has concentrated more on showing that he is from the left, on speaking to the convinced, than on expanding his speech beyond his niche.” A vision shared by another leader of the New Social Pact, who reinforced this by pointing out that “he does not speak to the undecided, he speaks to the convinced.”
In sectors of the former Concertación they pointed out that reconciliation will not be so easy, and that the process will be marked by how much Boric manages to redesign his campaign, from the language to the program, and how much resistance Approve Dignity puts to that. Some also bring out the rags in the sun of the delay of Beatriz Sánchez, in the presidential past, in expressing concrete support for Alejandro Guillier.
In the bloc, some historical leaders argued that the alignment of progressive forces in pursuit of defeating Kast could be more complex than that of the right, where they recognize that there is much more pragmatism. One of the main concerns – they said – is the future of the constituent process, given the lack of guarantees from a possible government of the representative of the Christian Social Front, which would pressure agreements.
Although there have already been informal conversations, it is expected that in the next few hours there will be more formal analyzes and dialogues, one month before the ballot.
