Chile Constitutional Referendum, September 4th 2022

[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.

[Lumine]

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.

[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.

[Lumine]

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.

Carmen Frei is way ahead already. Should be fun to see if they overreach again, particularly as they now hold the realistic presidential card for the center-left (not offense to Narvaez, but it's just not going to happen).

The levels of participation are so low that it's difficult to analyze the results in a meaningful way, but that 60% margin in District 11 singlehandedly saving Orrego is quite hilarious.

[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.

[Mike88]

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?

[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.

[Mike88]

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?

[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.

[Mike88]

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.

Ah, I wasn't aware of that.

[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) 

[Estrella]

An oversimplified rundown of the Chile Vamos primary debate, going by articles on Pauta, Bío Bío and such places:

Joaquin Lavín (UDI) — the state should be "stronger and more relevant, in the style of European social democracies" [bangs head on wall], "move from a market economy to one with more state presence", pendrives help stop drug trafficking [what], boo gay marriage, boo abortion, boo Provoste, yay Claudio Orrego, yay Kast, sort of, "governments of left or right no longer serve Chile" [eyeroll], spoke in Mapudungun for like one sentence, boo weed, one time some random person called him, addressed him as "Don Joaquín" and asked him to tell their son to stop smoking weed [chinny reckon].

Mario Desbordes (RN, PRI) — cut VAT, basically agrees with Lavín on everything, I totally pinky promise I want same sex marriage but many people oppose it so we should listen to them.

Ignacio Briones (Evópoli) — cut tax deductions, legalize weed, refusing to marry a same sex couple is like kicking them out of a restaurant actually.

Sebastián Sichel (independent) — Efficiency™, Centrism™, Moderation™, Unicorns and Fluffy Bunnies™, at least he didn't bring up Macron, thank god.

tl;dr a waste of time

[PSOL]

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?

[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.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

FA-PC debate is on rn.

[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.

[H.E. VOLODYMYR ZELENKSYY]

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.

Lmao. I love Boric tbh, although I fear I may be one of the only people who does.

[PSOL]

https://twitter.com/populismupdates/status/1410645222640345092?s=21

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.

[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)