Chile Constitutional Referendum, September 4th 2022

[kaoras]

Opposition presidential candidates have been campaigning with gubernatorial candidates, and have called to defeat the right everywhere. Daniel Jadue has been campaigning even for DC candidates where they face Chile Vamos.

Chile Vamos gubernatorial candidates have been trying to get as far as possible from Piñera and even the "rightist" label, saying all sort of nonsense such as "My party is the region" and so on. Presidential candidates from CV have also avoided campaigning for them, the exception being Claudio Orrego hilariously enough, who got the support from Lavín, Desbordes and Briones. He also has been saying that his focus is neither left nor right in his delicate balance act.

In more hilarious news, RN senator Francisco Chahuan is calling for the union of Chile Vamos and the ex-Concertación in a new "Confederación de la Democracia" (the DC-Right alliance in 1973 to oppose Allende) to stop the "red tsunami" of the extreme left in all of this year's elections.

[kaoras]

Governor runoffs are today!

Yes, we are looking at a very low turnout, but that was expected by everyone.

Besides the Metropolitan Region, the races to watch are Tarapacá which is another FA-UC duel, and Los Ríos, Arica and Coquimbo, the 3 regions the right thinks it has a chance to win (Arica and Los Ríos I can see it, but Coquimbo? hell no).

[kaoras]

Oliva is leading in Santiago but District 11 could turn the tide.

In the rest of the country Chile Vamos is only winning La Araucanía

[kaoras]

Yeah, Orrego got this. It's already 50-50 and most of what is left is from D11 where Orrego is getting 80%

[kaoras]

UC got Arica, Antofagasta, Santiago, O'Higgins, Maule, Ñuble, Los Ríos and Los Lagos + Aysen and Magallanes in the first round
FA got Tarapacá + Valparaiso in the first round
Chile Vamos only got Araucanía.

Later I will do a more in-dept analysis.

[kaoras]

Fairly disastrous for CV - not surprising, the center-right electorate is, understandably, both demoralized and/or frustrated - but I'll take it, the UC triumph should slow Jadue a bit for some time.

Can't really comment on most of the candidates, but Orrego is also a relief as Oliva - ideological differences aside - made it fairly clear during the campaign she wasn't ready in the slightest to run the Metropolitan Region.

Pretty much. In fact, it should worry UC that Orrego only won by 5 against a candidate of the quality of Oliva and with the ridiculous differential turnout on his favor (Oliva map SHOULD be a winning map), but its the ex-Concertación, the DC is clearly going to get drunk on their victory, just like after the gubernatorial primaries.

[kaoras]

I'll do a quick round-up because as Lumine said, turnout is so low that It doesn't make sense overthinking it.

Arica

Diaz Ibarra (DC-UC) won handily 57-42% against Enrique Lee (ind-CV). Lee had proven to be a strong candidate when he run as total independent, but the Chile Vamos tag proved way too toxic to overcome. Lee won the tiny Altiplano towns that had like 10% turnout.

Tarapacá

The other FA-UC fight, bot candidates actually had PPD backgrounds (Not just the former PPD voters are now in the FA ). Carvajal (FA) won 57% of the vote. Perez (UC) won the regional capital Iquique by a hair but got crushed in the rest of the region.

Atacama

Carlo Pezo (ind-UC, close to DC) lost in a landslide (40%-59%) against former Bachelet's intendente Miguel Vargas (ex-PS). Together with Tarapacá this really should worry UC and especially DC about their capacity to beat more leftist candidates. Pezo was also Yasna Provoste candidate (who is senator for the region). Curiusly enough, Pezo won the communist stronghold of Diego de Almagro, but well, with 10% turnout anything can happen (12% overall in the region).

Coquimbo

To the shock of no one with actual knowledge of the region, Krist Naranjo of the Ecologist Party crushed Marco Sulantay (UDI-CV) 62-38%. Sulantay is quite the last name in the region but the clan is awful at winning elections. I don't even know what to say about the right thinking they could win this. The election was also a referendum on the mining project Dominga, opposed by Naranjo. 

O'Higgins

Former intendente Pablo Silva (PS-UC) got 57,7% against Eduardo Cornejo (UDI-CV) who got 42,2%. This was basically a battle of who retained more votes as turnout crashed to 15%

[kaoras]

Maule

Center against Centre as Cristina Bravo (DC-UC) faced Francisco Pulgar, the closest thing to a true independent in this elections although he did run for Ciudadanos in 2017 in parliamentary elections. Bravo got 57,3% and Pulgar 42,7%. Pulgar faced sexual abuse accusations during the campaign.

Ñuble

One of the closest elections, Oscar Crisostomo (PS-UC) edged Jezer Sepulveda (UDI-CV) 53-47. Ñuble is very rural and one of the targets for Chile Vamos since there were many rightist candidates in the first round, but it was to no avail.

Bio Bio

Former intendente Ricardo Diaz (ex-DC) destroyed Flor Weisse of Chile Vamos (UDI) 71-28. Weisse didn't win a single Comuna in the region, not even in Arauco province where she was a provincial governor. Diaz had managed the endorsement of all the opposition.

Araucanía

Despite this region being THE stronghold of the right it was widely expected that Eugenio Tuma (PPD) would beat Chile Vamos' candidate Luciano Rivas (Ind-EVOPOLI) since he won comfortably in the first round. What happened was that Tuma lost almost half of his votes from the first round while   Rivas gained 10k extra votes. In the end Rivas won with 58% in another deadly blow to PPD

Los Ríos

My home region, was the #1 target of Chile Vamos since the left only got 50,2% combined in the first round and RN candidate former provincial governor Maria Jose Gatica won that round. In the end former regional councilor and Lanco mayor Luis Cuvertino proved the might of the PS in the Region with a surprising and extremely wide victory

Cuvertino got the support of all of the opposition and won 59% of the vote, maintaining almost all of his votes from the first round. In regional capital Valdivia, he won an extra 2k showing that the opposition consolidation had an effect. Maria Jose Gatica fell from 49k to 30k, getting only 41%. She won narrowly the eastern comunas of the region.

Los Lagos

Former deputy Patricio Vallespín (DC-UC) won in a landslide with over 62% of the vote against Ricardo Kuschel (RN-CV). Los Lagos, just like Los Rios, is a right-leaning region but it has been trending towards the left at a glacial pace in presidential elections. Together with Los Rios is the area where the old Duopolio Right-Concertación has held better.

[kaoras]

Región Metropolitana de Santiago

Former intendente Orrego (DC-UC) got almost 53% of the vote against Karina Oliva (FA). Oliva had made gafe after gafe in the final weeks of the campaign and the low turnout destroyed her. D11 single handily won the election for Orrego as she won most of urban Santiago. But while she won most of Santiago with turnouts of 15-20%, Orrego crushed her in the upper and high-income areas that saw 40% turnout plus the tiny rural areas. Oliva was a very weak candidate but was strongly supported by Jadue, and a lot of political analysts and the DC will wrongly see this as a vindication. Is not that this elections wasn't nationalized, it was, but the results are way more mixed than the topline.

Finally, the regions of the first round. In Valparaíso, a region that was right-leaning as late as 2013, water activist Rodrigo Mundaca (FA) won handily in the first round with 43% of the vote, consolidating the region as the main stronghold of FA. Aysen elected Andrea Macías (PS-UC) with 49%, who benefited from little competition coming from her left. Finally, in Magallanes Jorge Flies (ind-PS-UC) won with 42% despite facing a lot of independents, he was a very strong recruit.

[kaoras]

DC-PS-PPD will have a joint presidential candidate and parliamentary list. This basically a nice way to say that Narvaez is going to withdraw in favor of Provoste, probably after the legal primaries. PS keeps insisting on conventional primaries but that's going nowhere. Tensions between PS and DC remain very high but is not like they have options besides allying to each other (Well, they could split in PS-PPD-PL and DC-PR-PRO but that would be suicide). PR was left out because they want to take Maldonado to first-round (lmao) but most likely they will include them in a parliamentary list.

RN is almost at civil war because half of the party is supporting Sichel over Mario Desbordes. There are internal elections this Sunday for party president and Desbordes face senator Francisco Chahuán of the pro-Sichel/Allamand wing. There are also elections for the party's general council and the Desbordes faction could lose control.

On side notes, 21th June was declared a holiday, "indigenous people's day", eliminating the October 12th holiday (Encounter of two worlds). Some people want to bring the October Holiday back, including the government, but for now, Chile joins the small group of Latin American countries to not have a holiday on the day of Columbus arrival.

[kaoras]

RN is almost at civil war because half of the party is supporting Sichel over Mario Desbordes. There are internal elections this Sunday for party president and Desbordes face senator Francisco Chahuán of the pro-Sichel/Allamand wing. There are also elections for the party's general council and the Desbordes faction could lose control.

Isn't Lavin the favourite to win the Chile Vamos coalition primary?

Yes, but Sichel is not that far behind since Lavin's postpartisan gimmick doesn't sit well with the primary electorate. There are two other significant factors there though. One is that Sichel has been championed by the most establishment and orthodox wing of the right resistant to any changes to the model. For leftists, he comes across basically as a puppet of the economic elite. This is a contrast with Desbordes who has always been open to more populist economic measures and isn't inmobilist (the "social right"). But perhaps almost as important, Allamand and a lot of people in RN also happen to hate Desbordes for petty reasons and support Sichel to undermine him.

[kaoras]

RN is almost at civil war because half of the party is supporting Sichel over Mario Desbordes. There are internal elections this Sunday for party president and Desbordes face senator Francisco Chahuán of the pro-Sichel/Allamand wing. There are also elections for the party's general council and the Desbordes faction could lose control.

Isn't Lavin the favourite to win the Chile Vamos coalition primary?

Yes, but Sichel is not that far behind since Lavin's postpartisan gimmick doesn't sit well with the primary electorate. There are two other significant factors there though. One is that Sichel has been championed by the most establishment and orthodox wing of the right resistant to any changes to the model. For leftists, he comes across basically as a puppet of the economic elite. This is a contrast with Desbordes who has always been open to more populist economic measures and isn't inmobilist (the "social right"). But perhaps almost as important, Allamand and a lot of people in RN also happen to hate Desbordes for petty reasons and support Sichel to undermine him.

Do you think that these tensions within RN could, in the advent of a Lavin win, make Sichel run as an Independent?

Sichel is legally barred from running if he loses the primary so no chance, is now or never.

[kaoras]

With 98% of the vote counted in the RN internal election, Chahuan is beating Desbordes 53-47%, a victory for the hardline faction and Pro Sichel wing (Allamand, Larraín, etc.) RN is choosing to go to the trenches. Chauan proclaimed himself winner but said that Desbordes candidacy will continue (though for all practical purposes, is now basically dead).

In other news, FREVS is freezing its talks with the Communist party for a common parliamentary list (basically because PC is getting greedy) and they are staying out of the Apruebo Dignidad Primary. FREVS is basically a collection of ex-concertación machines and has regionalized pockets of support that are nothing to sneeze at. Curious to see where they end up going (though they did fairly well in 2017 running alone) 

[kaoras]

I have a general feelings from recently released polls that Jadue might just barely miss the runoff to Provoste from more right wing Socialist voters, thus leading to a centrist winning from backing Left and Center. How right is this intuition? Are the polls I’m seeing inaccurate or misleading to the general feel there?

This is not really out of the question but the recent talk has been mainly about the right missing the runoff and a Provoste-Jadue second turn were Provoste wins. But is too early, La Lista del Pueblo apparently wants to run a candidate and that could steal Jadue's thunder.

About the debate, consensus seem to be that the winner was Briones followed by Sichel, Lavín and Desbordes in that order. In any case, all the memes have been about Lavin's pendrive and the totally real call about marijuana.

[kaoras]

FA-PC debate is on rn.

Jadue is doing badly, but most notably, of course, there was a question from a Venezuelan about"ASI EMPEZÓ VENEZUELA", at which Boric responded that Piñera was going to jail alongside Maduro lmao. #LOCKHIMUP.

[kaoras]

More cringe pointing to Jadue losing the election. Sad, he was the only hope and now he’s p!$$ing it all away. Matheiu or Provoste will be the next Chilean president.

Literally nobody cares about this. Matthei also isn't running. Jadue is stable in the polls, his problems are his failure to expand beyond the core leftist vote and apparent unwillingness to do so. (plus the crescent arrogance of his party)

[kaoras]

Latest primary polls:

Chile Vamos
Activa: Lavín 26,7% ; Sichel 21,6% ; Desbordes 9,4% ; Briones 3,1%
Data Influye: Lavín 38% ; Sichel 38% ; Desbordes 14% ; Briones 10%
Criteria: Lavín 34% ; Sichel 31% ; Desbordes 8% ; Briones 6%
CADEM: Lavín 46% ; Sichel 23% ; Briones 11% ; Desbordes 10%

Apruebo Dignidad
Activa: Jadue 44,7% ; Boric 27,6%
Data Influye: Jadue 54% ; Boric 46%
Criteria: Jadue 56% ; Boric 22%
CADEM: Jaude 54% ; Boric 40%

In Chile Vamos Lavín is slightly ahead but Sichel is quickly catching up (The Cadem poll is older). I honestly think that Sichel might win. He is simultaneously seen as more right wing but is still selling his "independence". There could be a lot of ammo against him (Being basically a lab project of LyD, his past in the New Majority) but Desbordes is the only one attacking him. Lavin is more busy attacking Jadue.

In Apruebo Dignidad, Jadue is either miles ahead or Boric is putting a decent fight. I think that Jadue is going to win comfortably on a more traditional leftist coalition while Boric pulls the educated leftist vote.

[kaoras]

First two days of Franja Electoral:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_y3nV8RPS4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwefc9MmgZY

I haven't been able to bring myself to watch the cringefest of the right.

[kaoras]

Is electability factoring into the calculations of PC-FA voters and/or bigwigs in any way?

Not really. The right having been beated so badly doesn't put much sense of urgency into it, but in the first round I see it being one of the battlecries of Provoste.

[kaoras]

I'm not really sure how the voting system works. Many rounds until someone gets 78? Is not clear.

[kaoras]

Main candidates for the presidency so far seem to be Elisa Loncón (Mapuche, supported by her people and the FA), Isabel Godoy (Colla, supported by the non-Mapuche indigenous peoples), Patricia Politzer (Independientes No Neutrales), and Harry Jurgensen (RN, lol).

Yeah, the right put Jurgensen as a testimonial candidate. Elisa Loncón seem to be leading so far. Haven't been paying attention to how the ex-concertación is voting, but I heard some PS voting Loncón too.

[kaoras]

PS is definitely voting Lincon, as some other members of Lista del Apruebo. Most of PC voting Isabel Godoy. Godoy has received some votes from some Mapuche and Lincon from some non-mapuche indigenous.

Edit:

So far is: Loncón 45, Jurgensen 29, Gody 29, Politzer 16, Dorador 2, Llanquileo 1.

Not enough votes left for Lincón to win in the first round.

[kaoras]

Jurgensen ends up 1 vote ahead of Godoy, it looks like. Loncón will likely be president. Wonder how a Loncón-Godoy second round would have gone.

I think they vote from 0 again, no one is eliminated. Also, Chile Vamos has 37 votes, so someone didn't vote for Jurgensen.

Full first round result: Loncón 58, Jürgensen 36, Godoy 35, Politzer 20, Dorado 3, others 3.

[kaoras]

Cheers for the news that catering will be provided after the second round.

Also they are done with calling one by one to vote. Now they just put the ballot in the chalice

Edit: Godoy seems to have dropped out in favor of Loncón. Many on the right are voting Politzer this time but Loncón got this.

[kaoras]

Loncón was elected.

Final results were Loncón 96, Jürgensen 33, Politzer 19, Godoy 5, 2 blank. Now they are going to elect the vicepresident.