Chile Constitutional Referendum, September 4th 2022

[kaoras]

Yeah... The elections will be moved to May 8th and 9th, sigh. I will change the title when it becomes official.

[kaoras]

So what's Lavin like? Is he a pretty generic conservative?

Not really, some people say he is a populist, but he isn't populist in the common understanding of the word. He would likely be extremely orthodox in economic matters. The thing is that his policies are extremely gimmicky, all new and innovative and not actually that effective but they are so shiny and help him build his image as someone who was "ideas" to solve problems. That has been a source of criticism in the past, saying he is all gimmick with no grand political project or ideology ( "cosismo") He has also draw a lot of ire because of his unorthodox labeling. In 2007 he declared himself Bacheletista-Aliancista (Bachelet is the former socialist president of Chile and Alianza was the name of the rightist coalition at the time) and last year he claimed that he was a "social democrat", a particularly infamous remark.

I see the Bacheletista-Aliancista and socialdemocrat stuff as just lame attempts to appeal to the center and to appear as above ideology and polarization (he also talks a lot about doing a government of national unity and so on). I think that if he actually wins he would govern as a very standard conservative (by Chile standards). But a lot of rightists are wary of him because of the reasons I mentioned.

[kaoras]

The delay of the elections is finally official. The new date is May 15-16th. The new electoral schedule ends up like this:

Constituent, municipal and gubernatorial elections: May 15-16th
Runoff for gubernatorial elections: June 13th.
Presidential Primary: July 18th
Presidential and Paliamentary elections: November 21th (no change)
Presidential Runoff: December 19th (no change)

[kaoras]

The delay of the elections is finally official. The new date is May 15-16th. The new electoral schedule ends up like this:

Constituent, municipal and gubernatorial elections: May 15-16th
Runoff for gubernatorial elections: June 13th.
Presidential Primary: July 18th
Presidential and Paliamentary elections: November 21th (no change)
Presidential Runoff: December 19th (no change)

Obviously a bureaucratic clusterf/ck is preferable to keeping Piñera in office a day longer than necessary, but it would be much better if the general election took place under a new constitution. I wonder what happens if there is, say, a change to the number of deputies elected or, more seriously, to the role of President; will those only apply to their successors?

If Piñera were to extend his period a single day (an idea that has been floated around unironically by some UDI and anonymous government sources) I'm pretty sure that the country would be set on fire at lightning speed

All the changes will likely end up applied to their successors only, besides, the timetable is fairly long and includes another exit plebiscite. But honestly, no one has given it a serious thought.

[kaoras]

As a side note, I want to comment about the government attacks on the press.

In 2019, during the social uprising the government held a meeting with the TV channel executives. After the meeting, the TV channels stopped their special coverage of the protest and mostly returned to their normal programation.

This year, an aide of Piñera called the TV network "La Red" to complain about their editorial line, saying it was left-wing and that kind of line was bad for democracy.
 
A few weeks ago, Health Minister accused Washington Post and New York times of coordinating to publish fake news about Chile, after both reported factually about the spike on cases despite the vaccination drive.

Today it was revealed that the government called the Chilevisión TV Network to complain about the comment made by a TV host that joked about the existence of a Piñera variant of Covid while reporting about long lines in the capital during the lockdown. The government denies this but their track record speaks for itself.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of why I think the Right is an existential threat to this country. They are morally bankrupt, with 0 regards for basic democratic principles and at their core unreformed since Pinochet ( BTW, the brand new minister of labor is an ex-Pinochet functionary that sent a list of "subversive" students to the secret police, and his replacement as deputy is the son of a secret police agent incarcerated for torture!) , as the mass humans rights violations and absolute contempt for any kind of criticism of their incompetent management show.

[kaoras]

Well, the right is really freaking out and sounding all the alarm bells of electoral oblivion due to Piñera decision to take the third withdrawal of private pension funds to the Constitutional Court to stop it.

I think they are overreacting. This is a very unpopular move but is this really what's going to break the camel's back? I think that was broken quite some time ago and this thing isn't going to sink them that much.

Besides, the opposition is going to self-destruct again with another doomed impeachment of Piñera that is only going to cause them internal crisis and infighting. So if anything the only effect of this whole ordeal is to increase even more the number of votes wasted in the independent candidacies.

[kaoras]

Tres Quintos (Chile's Fruna version of 538 _{Chileans will appreciate this joke}) released a base projection for the Constituent Convention election. It is based on 2017 parliamentary results and considers the current political alliances and the effects of social uprising.

Constituent Unity (DC-PPD-PS-PR-PRO) -Centre Left:  68 seats (66-75)
Chile Vamos (UDI-RN-EVO-PRI) - Right: 64 seats (60-70)
Chile Digno (PC-FRVS-IC-PI) - Left: 10 seats (8-15)
Frente Amplio (RD-PL-C-CS) -Left: 9 (8-15)
Republican Party - Far Right: 1 seat (0-3)
Humanist Party - Left: 1 seat (0-3)
Ecologist Party -Left: 1 seat (0-3)
No Neutrales - Center leftish independent list: 1 seat (0-3)

The left would get 90 seats, 14 short of the 2/3 majority they want. Tres Quintos does not give a vote share but claims that the left would get over 60% of the vote but just 56% of seats

I think this projection is fine considering the amount of info available at the moment, even if I think it overshoots the right as a whole but underestimates the Republican Party. Most likely the humanist and ecologist will join some alliance and I think there will be a fair share of independents, but that's impossible to project in advance.

More details (and district per district breakdown) here: https://tresquintos.cl/constituyentes2021/
 

Wow, even after all these protests there is no far left? How the hell is the far right doing better there. Very sad, I remember reading about how the Communists were hoping for a breakthrough after Piñera ran the country into the ground

That's because you don't know Chilean party acronyms . Chile Digno is the communist coalition and is now allied with the Broad Front. Both of them are called "extreme-left" by the right. Besides, that projection is really favorable to the right. I think is insane to think that they are only going to fall 3%

[kaoras]

Governor Poll for the Metropolitan Region. Likely Voters:

Orrego (Unidad Constituyente-Centre left) 30,5%
Parot (Chile Vamos-Right) 20,2%
Maltés (PH- Left) 16,5%
Oliva (FA - Left ) 14,2%
Edwards (PREP - Far right) 8,4%
Joignant (PEV - Left) 6,4%
Martínez (FRVS - Centre-Left) 2%
Quilodrán (UPA - Far left) 1,8%

Jiles effect is in full force for Maltés, who is her husband. Is amazing that if FA hadn't split so much then the Right could have been locked out of the runoff. Nominally left of center candidates are north of 70% (A lot of Maltés voters are probably non-ideological though), so is almost sure that Orrego will win the runoff.

[kaoras]

TC rejected the government request. Now the only option to stop the pension withdrawal bill is a veto. After pressure from Chile Vamos (scared of the electoral doom coming to them) Piñera had presented his own pension's fund withdrawal bill assuming that the Constitucional Tribunal would have declared the Congress bill illegal. Now he is totally outplayed and the opposition is calling his project a fourth withdrawal (Congress one was the third).

Is really hard to describe all these things, but it really feels like this government is over. This institutional order is basically finished. Piñera has no legitimacy, no political skills, no management abilities. The whole political system is in ruins with just the vague promise of the constituent process rebuilding it at some point in the future (if we don't keep delaying elections).

Piñera should have resigned in October-November of 2019. He staying has caused way more damage to this country and ironically the political system would have been less disrupted.

[kaoras]

Last I had read I thought Pamela Jiles was a bit of a joke? I'm a bit confused by her, is she a serious candidate for President, a popular populist, or just the entertaining Naruto copy? I find this all very fascinating and would love to be illuminated some more.

Jiles a lot of the time is deliberately clownish. His Naruto and Anime gimmick is because anime is really mainstream in Chile, among young people watching an anime series is as normal as watching a Netflix show (The only children's tv channel in the country is literally an anime channel, many of them with subtitles) so that helps her connect with some of the "Otakus-activists" that were born in the social uprising.

She was a well-known public figure in gossip journalism but she also participated in many opposition newspapers during the dictatorship. She has always had a very polemic style and has long been associated with left-leaning parties (the old extraparliamentary left that was not a part of the main centre-left coalition, Concertación). Unlike what some people say, I think she is genuinely left-wing, though more of the "I just hate the right and Pinochet" variety.

The reasons why she is leading the polls are because the situation was ideal for a populist surge. The right has presided over the destruction of the institutional and social order of this country and the leftist parties are a fragmented joke unable to unite behind a serious alternative political project. I predicted since the early days of the uprising that populism was a likely outcome and unfortunately time has proven me right. Pamela Jiles was very smart, she made the withdrawal of the private pension funds for Covid relief her pet project. This is a measure that gets extremely wide support because most people hate the private pension system (AFP) and the right had been hammering the idea that those funds were YOUR money in attempts to reject any kind of reform to the system. So of course, over 80% of people were eager to stick it to the AFP or to get "their OWN Money" back.

I think she is kinda serious about running for president, but well, you never know. His base is mostly non-ideological voters and I think she is a perfect fit for "fachos pobres" (poor people who vote for the right).

[kaoras]

I have heard the PH is something of a cult - would you agree?

I have heard this from Spaniards because the Spanish PH apparently is a cult but I have never heard anything of that kind about the Chilean PH. They have always been a hippie protest leftist party until the breakout with the FA in 2017. Mind you that since last year Pamela Jiles efectively took over the party and now is her personal vehicle, most of the historic humanists leaders are now in a movement called Acción Humanista which is allied with the Communist Party.

[kaoras]

3 days until the constituent elections. Any predictions on results?

Predictions for Constituent Elections are all over the place. Some say that the right is still on track to 40% of seats, others say that they are at risk of falling below "el tercio" (33% of the seats needed for veto). For mayors, the consensus is that the right will be alright but the gubernatorial elections are going to be a bloodbath for them.

Anyway, here are some predictions for constituent electiosn:

• The government still says that the right is going to get a third of the seats and the most voted list
• "Electoral Expert" deputy Pepe Auth predicts: Chile Vamos 30% and 56 seats; Lista del Apruebo 24% and 43 seats; Apruebo Dignidad 19% and 30 seats; independent lists: 22% and 9 seats
• Election site Tres Quintos: Chile Vamos 51-65 seats; Lista del Apruebo 51-59; Apruebo Dignidad 18-23; Others: 4-7.*
• All of the following is what the party think it will get: EVOPOLI 6, UDI 30, PS 10-14, DC 10-12, PPD 6-8, PRO 2, PC 12, Comunes 5, Convergencia Social 6
• Unidad Constituyente (Lista del Apruebo) think they will get in total about 40 seats

None of this considers the reserved seats for indigenous peoples.

From yours truly, my predictions would be: Lista del Apruebo 28%; Chile Vamos 28%, Apruebo Dignidad 22%, Independents and others: 22%. No idea about seats.
 

[kaoras]

Who are most of the Independents aligned with?

Like 90% of them are leftist. Them being so split is why the left has a poor vote share-seat conversion. There is some concern in high info voters about vote dispersion but I think is too little, too late.

[kaoras]

On the PH, I would say that they are a cult, I still remember a friend from high school that studied before my school at a very hippy school in Chile, and he had a friend that her mother was a member of the party (and was a perennial candidate in many elections) and she was very weird and was part of new age groups with other people that also were members of the party. I don't know if they are a cult, but they are weird people that do weird stuffs together.

I don't think hippies doing hippie stuff together counts as a cult. The humanist movement on its origins is somewhat cultish as shown in the book Palomita Blanca but considering how long and how often the party has been in the spotlight in the last 30 years if they were a real cult we would know for sure by now. Besides, maybe is a "Distrito 11" thing, you have those ecological communities there and what not

As a side note, remember when I say that anime was mainstream in Chile?:

[kaoras]

What's with Latin America and anime usage in politics? Between this candidate I mentioned on AAD in Perú (who wasn't even the only otaku pandering candidate in that election!) and now this in Chile; Latin America might have more anime in politics than even Japan itself lmao

Well, as I said, in Chile, and I think that's the case in other Latin American countries too, anime is not really a niche of those weird otakus with strange clothing. It is kinda like rock music, not everybody is into it, but nobody under 30 (40 even) bats an eye if you do. There's a generation that grew up watching anime on public TV and even most older people have been regularly exposed to older series (Perú and Ecuador even dubbed Super Sentai! before Power Rangers existed).  I watch anime and the majority of my friends watch too, but nobody would really fit the otaku stereotype and I don't know anyone who is really into anime conventions, cosplay, and that kind of stuff (despite that those people definitely exist!). Besides, Shingeki was HUUUUUUGE, even people who don't normally watch anime followed the series when the first season came out. So you shouldn't see this as pandering to otakus, but pandering to young people in general.

[kaoras]

Poll for district 11. Chile Vamos got 63% there in 2013.

The seat distribution would be Chile Vamos 4, Lista del Apruebo 1, Apruebo Dignidad 1. Independientes por Chile (centrist list of ex-DC led by Mariana Aylwin, daughter of former presiden Patricio Aylwin) would be very close to getting 1 at the expense of Chile Vamos.

Worth nothing that this poll excludes 6 small leftists list, and half of the candidates of Apruebo Dignidad and Independientes por Chile, without even giving the option for "other", but well... is something

My takeaway of this is that the vote share for Chile Vamos /Vamos for Chile is beyond awful. Like, apocalyptic level awful. At his favor is that in district 11 they have competition from Mariana Aylwin and small far-right candidates like Henry Boys and Francisco Orrego, but this is supposed to be the most disciplined electorate of the right. In other districts, voters with no other appealing options could just end up not voting at all.

[kaoras]

More projections:

As for young participation, from what I can tell those who voted in the plebiscite still plan to vote on these elections.

[kaoras]

So they all have the right over 1/3 of the seats? Shame, but I suppose it’s not unexpected.

I think that all of those projections are fighting the last war. Is still very probable that the right managed 1/3 of the seats because of vote dispersion, but there are huge number of undecided voters (who still want to vote) and I think they will break mostly towards independents.

[kaoras]

OK i know this is a rather dumb question, but why are this elections held now and not later in the year along with the presidential and legislative elections?

The original date of these elections was in October last year, making them coincide with the regularly scheduled municipal elections. They were delayed to April due to Coronavirus and again to today. The political situation of the country really makes it impossible to delay them longer and 7 different ballots at the same time (what would happen if they were held with the rest of the elections) would be an extremely bad idea. People are already struggling with 4.

[kaoras]

Does each category have it's individual ballot?

Yes, and for councils and constituents, they are quite big. To vote in Chile you need some skills in origami. Here is an example of a ballot for councilliors:

Any reports about turnout?

19,01% with 94% of polling places reporting. So ~20% of turnout the first day. Worth noting that there is some concern among left-wingers about voting on Saturday because they don't trust the military to keep the votes safe. Don't know how widespread that is.

[kaoras]

https://www.servelelecciones.cl

Turnout of 20.5% (3mm people). 41.31% in Vitacura (where Rechazo won with 66%).

But I think we can expect higher turnout tomorrow (my bet is that will be significantly higher).

Lower than for the original plebiscite? Or about the same?

In Vitacura is way higher. In Santiago is clear that right-wing areas voted more. In other regions, it seems more random.

[kaoras]

Turnout seems pitiful. I'm now pessimistic nationwide, but my region could be my consolation price. I'm going to be a poll watcher so I'll trust seb_pard to give updates when results start to come in.

Here are some resources:

English info about the major lists: https://twitter.com/AmericaElige/status/1393989762244136963

Result's page: https://www.servelelecciones.cl/

Alternative result page which should be slower but with way more data: https://www.decidechile.cl/

[kaoras]

How do the independents lean politically?

90% of them are leftist (as a rule of thumb, every independent outside district 11)

Also: BEST ELECTION EVER

[kaoras]

Ok so uh, given the results, should I worry about Chile becoming a Bolivarian Republic of some sort and West Venezuela in a couple of years? (Given the left holds a 2/3 supermajority)

Or is the Chilean left not a danger in that way?

In some ways, Chile is arguably the most "European" Latin American country, and this includes the facts that 1) it has a strong civil society that you can't just stomp on like Chávez did, 2) it has a well-developed, diverse economy that would be hard to sink even if you tried, not least because Codelco ≠ PDVSA, 3) the vast majority of insane anti-democratic people are found on the far-right. And don't forget that this two-thirds majority includes people like Christian Democrats.

Really, this feels like being in 1980s Spain and asking if the country is going to turn into Soviet Union after the González landslide(s).

This is true. I don't know what the future will bring, but we will pave our own way. Comparisons with other countries are meaningless speculation.

BTW, the Christian Democrats got 2 seats, easily the single most pleasing result for me. Independientes por una nueva Constitución/No neutrales with 11 seats are probably more in line with what you are thinking, center-left moderates and liberals. Besides, while basically all of the independents are left-leaning, they have a myriad of views, and is very unlikely you could coordinate them to turn us in the People's Socialist Republic of Chile.

[kaoras]

Some thoughts.

-The party system of the last 30 years is over. The right is in ruins, it was an epic bloodbath for everyone in Unidad Constituyente save for PL and PS. FA+PC got good results, but the main winners were the independents. This is where people went to express anger with politics.

-I just cannot possibly analyze objectively the results for the right. I fantasized about this kind of result, but seeing them come true is just incredible. I'm so happy to see their unbelievable incompetence, murderous repression, and destructive immobilism punished so thoroughly. The United Right got 20,5% of the vote, they didn't even get 22% of Reject. To get a lower result for them you have to go all the way back to 1965 when Partido Liberal+Partido Conservador got 12%, and that was with the Christian Democrats getting 43,6% (did I mention they got 2 seats now?). Piñera has totally destroyed Chile Vamos

They didn't win any seats in Atacama nor South Santiago. Even in their district 11 strongholds, they lost 20% from 2017. The South saved them somewhat. In Mayoral, they lost over 60 mayorships despite the hilarious dispersion of the opposition. They are in danger of getting 0 governorships. But interestingly in councilors (the most "Partidist" election in Chile), they got 30% + 3% of Republicans. Clearly, a lot of their people voted for independents. What has been destroyed today is their current parties, but not their ideological space.