The storm that took hold of Chile Podemos + candidate, Sebastián Sichel, for weeks, and the possibility that the sector’s leadership will be taken away by the toughest right, embodied by José Antonio Kast, has made the social right, led by the ex-member of National Renovation, Mario Desbordes, is immersed in deep reflection, since although an ocean of ideological differences separates them with the so-called Christian Social Pact, anti-communism unites them. “Boric is worse,” they say. That is why they have decided to opt for a permanent state of vigilance between now and November 21 at night, when there is already clear clarity on how the political forces will be formed in Parliament.
With an underhand job, after the hard double defeat he suffered when he lost re-election as president of RN and finished fourth among four competitors in the official primary, today those who surround Desbordes share the ideals of a right that has to bet towards the center and not towards the extremes.
The project of the former Minister of Defense, sustained in 10 years of work, preceded from the head by Cristián Monckeberg and branched out by Senator Manuel José Ossandón, was in tatters –as recognized by several-, but not left out. Ad portas to give the go to a foundation, and with the support of academics who joined during the campaign, such as Hugo Herrera, the sector is preparing to resist or, in the event that Sebastián Sichel passes to the second round, to capitalize on a look that, in the middle of the presidential race, he seems to have lost quite a bit of ground.
The only thing that is clear today in the sector is that, regardless of the presidential and parliamentary result, the right, as it is known today, will be severely stressed and in the midst of an ideological and hegemonic deputy.
As the director of the UDP School of Advertising, Cristián Leporati, pointed out, should JA Kast go to the second round, “his political discourse is going to become much more meat on the right. In the end, there is going to be a semantic shift in the way the right-wing approached things. What the right has always done is what it has wanted to do, and not what it has been able to do (…). A more sincere speech would be installed, this right says what it thinks, it happened with Trump, and VOX, campaigns that can make your hair fall, but direct ”.
In this framework, and after a long period of reflection, and after having been “mistreated” by Sebastián Sichel’s team, the joint decision was made to join forces to make clear to the public the differences that exist between a right and another. The exercise, in addition to convincing voters, seeks to install a look and a discourse that manages to impregnate and, thus, avoid being absorbed or pushed into irrelevance, considering the polarization of the speeches in the middle of the campaign, a fact that would play in their against.
In practical terms –as they pointed out-, It is seeking to flesh out a space that seeks to avoid two possible scenarios at all costs. The first speaks of a struggle of ideas that, in practice, the more conservative sector would have greater facilities to install, due to the resonance caused by its proposals or “more thoughtless” locations. The other, that in the face of an eventual great defeat, that is, that neither of its two candidates goes to the second round, the idea born from the most conservative sector of RN is reinstated, such as merging everything to leave a single party, situation that would blur them completely, they pointed out.
Through the foundation, accompanied by academics, and with Cristián Monckeberg contributing his at the Constitutional Convention, they hope to be on a good footing for what will be the intense internal debate that will take place once the results are already known on Sunday. 21 at night.
Although Sebastián Sichel was never to his liking as a candidate and because of his performance in the primaries, his gaze and his proposal perfectly match the position from the most liberal sector of RN, so the approach and collaboration on the ground, if well it was not an easy decision –they explained–, “It was absolutely necessary”. With the more liberal wing of Evópoli, embodied mainly in Ignacio Briones, they have taken care to install the idea that, regardless of whether it is lost in the presidential election, there is a space for defense of those who are not willing to blend in with the leader’s speech of the Republican Party. This does not mean, however, that it is understood that, to a greater or lesser degree, if José Antonio Kast passes, “Gabriel Boric is more dangerous”.
For now, no decision has been made on how to act after knowing the results of Sunday, “they are conversations that continue to take place”, what is certain is that, for or against their claims, the differentiation of the more conservative sector “must be fine-tuned.”
The dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Tomás Duval, indicated that, if the candidate of the Christian Social Pact passes to the second round, “it will cause a very strong tension in the center-right, because we are in a process of change, of crisis and uncertainty, an issue that, viewed from the conservative world, is more reluctant to these processes than to join or participate in them ”.
For now, expectations are set on getting a greater number of representatives of his gaze in the parliamentarians, betting that the harshest speech in that space may have a degree of setback. Víctor Blanco, a member of the RN political commission and close to Mario Desbordes, said that “we are working hard for our candidates, that we are in all of Chile, that they represent the social right, that we trust that the people will support them, and that they are going to elect us again because of their consequence and ideas that they propose to the public. We believe that Sichel will do well, that he represents our sector, RN and the social right ”, he pointed out.
District 11, the quintessence of the right
The district that covers the communes of Las Condes, Vitacura, Lo Barnechea, La Reina and Peñalolén, is in the words of a UDI official “the DNA of the right, universities, university students, teachers, businessmen, public opinion, columnists, leaders They live there, they make their lives there, it is their little territory ”. His words seek to explain the fear that would exist in the party at the possibility of running out of representatives in that space: “It is as if Mickey Mouse were a candidate for Disney and lost,” he said.
This district considers the three communes classified as those of Rejection, where in the plebiscite they were almost the only spaces in which its gaze managed to impose itself (Las Condes, Vitacura and Lo Barnechea), and as well as the Senate of the Metropolitan Region is considered the mother of all the battles at the national level, this deputation is for the right.
In this context, what is at stake is the hegemony of the sector, the power of influence and representation in a space that mainly concentrates the economic power of the country, always linked to this space of the rainbow of political representation.
In unionism there is concern, since the irruption of the Christian Social Front could absorb in different places the classic voter of the party based on Sweden Avenue and, although it does not always get its candidate elected, it does subtract a sufficient percentage of support from the UDI to leave more than one competitor out of the fight.
This is the case of district 11, where today the union has only one representative –they blame the administration of Jacqueline van Rysselberghe for having bet on its secretary general, Pablo Terrazas, in the last elections– and the only hope of staying in the so-called “quintessence of the right.” It is about the deputy who is going for re-election, Guillermo Ramírez, close to the current board of directors.
The problem is that –according to private studies– its possibility would be further away than was thought at the time and that would explain the level of “nineties” deployment that the last month of the campaign has had, with a large number of so-called “parades”, which are the squadrons that are installed in the street to distribute flyers and hold flags. There are those in the same party who assure that, just by looking at the number of representatives campaigning on their behalf, they believe that it could be talking about perhaps the campaign with the “highest electoral spending” in the country.
According to a survey commissioned by the Republican Party, beyond the interests of wanting to show their numbers on election days, these would coincide with other samples that pass from hand to hand in the sector, coming from other parties in the conglomerate.
On this occasion, the poll indicates that, as of November 12, the candidate with the most support would be the candidate for mayor for Las Condes, Gonzalo de la Carrera (PR), with 13.6 percent, followed by the candidate from Evópoli , Francisco Undurraga, with a 12.4, and in third place is RN Catalina del Real, with a 10.7 of the preferences. Then there are two other candidates from the Republican Party, such as Cristián Araya and Martín Carvajal, with 5.7 and 5.5 percent. Only after, and with a 5.2, you can see the name of the UDI Guillermo Ramírez.
Although the district elects six representatives and the Christian Social Front goes out of agreement, therefore, with greater difficulties in installing one of its own, the mere fact of bringing water to its mill would be putting at risk the representativeness of the unionism in the district. In addition to Ramírez, among those who are also fighting for a quota are the deputies RN Gonzalo Fuenzalida and Karin Luck, who would consider support of 3.5 and 2 percent, respectively. The sixth space –recognize in the UDI– it has a high probability of staying in the opposition, in the hands of the deputy Tomás Hirsch, who appears with an 8.2.
But, regardless of one or another survey, the sentiment that runs through the corridors of the UDI is closer to that of a defeat than a comeback.
In this sense, there are those who have installed the thesis that, if this occurs in more than one locality, it could lead the party led by Javier Macaya to a level of inconsequentiality to which they are not used. As everywhere, there are also the optimists who appeal –as pointed out– that the distribution figure after the first three places should favor the union representative.
For Leporati, “in symbolic terms, it is tremendously relevant for the right not to lose the bastion that has been the base from which they build politics, exercise hegemony, exercise power, and control the agenda setting.”
