Some speak of a thought out strategy and, others, of a bad political calculation on the part of the UDI leadership, but the truth is that already at the end of September, in an interview with T13, the general secretary of the party, María José Hoffmann, pointed out that “there is no freedom of action, but obviously that the path we have chosen is the path of convincing”, opening the door wide so that the representatives of the unionism who wanted taking the photo with José Antonio Kast, and not with his official candidate, Sebastián Sichel, would have no consequence for that.
A month later, and after the sustained growth that the president of the Republican party has had –also thanks to the political floor offered by the same UDI in different circumstances–, alarms went off not only in the party based on Sweden Avenue, but also also in the rest of the conglomerate. This was evidenced by the union helmsman, Javier Macaya, in an interview with Third on Saturday, November 30, when he pointed out that “there is a risk of having a bad result in the parliament. When the campaign started, we told the command that the parliamentarian is key, that there would be the base of territorial support of the parties, but no candidate has received support phrases from Sebastián Sichel, from any party (…). Voting for a candidate from the Republican Party to Parliament may mean losing a third of the Chamber of Deputies ”.
In this way, what at first seemed to be a valid strategy to increase the electoral performance of its candidates for Parliament, who felt a weight more than a support when approaching the former DC that was already trending downward, ended up turning around and it became a real threat to the aspirations of at least achieving a minimum percentage of influence on the part of Chile Podemos + in Congress.
Even prior to the presidential primary, which Sebastián Sichel won by far, the forecasts were kept under seven keys that pointed out that the ruling party, if it followed the trend already experienced in the election of conventional, mayors and regional governors, could lose up to 50 percent of its parliamentary representation. This, also dragged by a government that has not managed to get out of the very low support and high rejection that accompanies it like a ghost since the social outbreak.
As part of the factors that have been put on the table, there is the function that the union leadership fulfilled when it equated the two candidates, which are now assumed as their own (not officially, but in real terms), nullifying the message that He warned his voters about the importance of voting for his parliamentary list and not for the Christian Social Front. Today – union activists assumed – when their voters reach the ballot box, they will not be clear about the damage that voting for a list other than theirs can mean. “We made it look like they are both good,” they pointed out.
This has been addressed both at the political commission level and at board meetings, and although there are those who lower its profile – accusing that, if there is a transfer, this “will be to a lesser degree” -, there are others who envision a new debacle. It should always be remembered that the ruling party is playing the last possibility of achieving a space of power of influence in the decision-making of public policies in the country. In case of losing the Government, they do not have it in the Constitutional Convention, nor at the level of regional governors, and at the communal level it is very limited.
In the survey You influence – published on Wednesday, November 3 -, when asked Which of these political referents do you feel represents you best? in third place appears Republicans with 15%, which represents an increase of 10 points compared to the last poll, and below them, Chile Podemos + with 10%, five points less.
The director of Tú Influences, Axel Callís, explained this, noting that “brands are relevant, people did not know the People’s List as individuals, but they voted for the brand on the list. The Action of the UDI could damage the list of Chile Vamos, the support to Kast is not gratuitous, it will cost them many deputies, several ”.
All this considering that the mere fact that the sector goes in two lists mainly benefits the opposition conglomerate, an idea that was tried to avoid from the beginning, but that prevented the, at that time, insurmountable differences between a right that bet towards the center and another that sought to reinforce the niche of 20 percent of the Rejection in the plebiscite.
The RN deputy and political storyteller, Tomás Fuentes, made a calculation that he published The Mercury, in which he pointed out that in 2017, when the sector was on a single list, it obtained 2,321,340 votes in the parliament, which translated into 72 deputies. On this occasion, in the simulation, he gave 10 percent of the votes to the Christian Social Front, which resulted in a decrease from 46 to 4 percent of representation in Parliament.
Where the issue also generated concern was in National Renovation, since the first reading that was made was that, with the rise of JA Kast, added to the improvement in the image of his party, the standard-bearer of the Christian Social Front should draw votes mainly of the toughest candidates, including several from the party who compete mainly in the 11th district.
The director of the School of Government and Communications of the Central University, Marco Moreno, pointed out that “this fragmentation in the right-wing electorate also hits one of the most important attributes of the sector, which is governability. Having two candidates means that there is no unity of criteria for the election, excessive disorder in the ranks of the sector ”.
Meanwhile, the dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of the Autonomous University, Tomás Duval, indicated that “there is no doubt that two parliamentary lists will most likely impact the least eligibility of the Chile Vamos list in certain districts. , but not in the whole country. This then affects not only the UDI but also the Chile Vamos list and favors lists of the Christian Social Front ”.
At this time, the debate is taking place regarding who is the real responsible: if Sebastián Sichel’s command, for closing the doors to the parties and who, having sought to sustain his image as an independent, avoided at all costs to make ground with the candidates – added to the fact that the ex-guild candidate left the entire right flank -, or the lack of leadership of the presidents of the UDI and RN, mainly the former, which not only opened the door for camouflaged freedom of action, but also he could not avoid bleeding to the right of his militancy.
Once the presidential race is over, there are not a few who predict a different future in relation to what is now known as Chile Vamos, with two rights, as just happened in the Constitutional Convention, with a subgroup made up of independents, RN and Evópoli, and another by militants of the UDI and Republicans.
For Callís, “the UDI has to define in the short term if it is associated with Republicans, the electorate does not give for two hard rights. If one looks at the behavior of the UDI, one would think that the next electoral pact will be with Republicans and not with Chile Vamos. They are doing everything possible so that there are two rights, one hard and one soft. “
