“For years, the left relativized crime, weakened authority and persecuted the police. Today, it pays that price in blood and fear.” This statement comes from José Antonio Kast, the favorite in the second round of the Chilean presidential elections.
Kast is known as the Chilean. This perhaps explains why a taxi driver, in , surprised me by finding out that he had lost “for very little, something like 2%, right?”. The public safety theme dominated the campaign, but what is new is apathy. Two weeks before the election there were no signs of elections on the streets. Here and there were billboards featuring individual candidates for the legislative elections. Apathy also in the presidential debates in which the eight .
Frustration with the government is overwhelming and marked by the Constituent Assembly fiasco and escalation of violence. Chile was marked by a pattern of political competition, vertebrate by two coalitions of center-right (Alianza) and center-left (Concertación), and which collapsed, giving way, in 2021, to a confrontation between outsiders. Boric, an inexperienced student leader who emerged as an independent candidate, leading a coalition with the communist party and movements. And Kast is an independent candidate, who later founds a party.
The —the left had the lowest percentage of votes in 30 years— suggests a wave like what occurred in 2000, in the wake of the commodities boom, with the left. But with the sign changed: it favors the right due to the overwhelming public security crisis affecting the region. The wave is thus more than a new anti-incumbent sentiment.
The break in the pattern also has institutional roots. The country had adopted “compulsory voting, voluntary registration” for 30 years; Those who were not registered suffered non-trivial sanctions if they did not vote, which created incentives for not registering. The rate plummeted from 90.7% to 17.5% between 1988 and 2011. The backlash led to a radical shift in 2013 to “automatic registration, optional voting.” Result: brutal drop in voter turnout in the presidential and legislative elections, in the 2020 plebiscite, and in the 2021 elections. Boric was elected with a turnout of 47.3% of the electorate. In the first round of the current election, this rate was 85.3%. Voting is now mandatory. If before only the most engaged tended to vote, now the silent majority dominates. This also explains the failure of the new Constitution.
The second rule change involves the binomial system in which districts have two representatives; If the candidate at the top of a coalition’s list had more than double that of its rival, the coalition would take both seats in dispute. Otherwise, the second seat goes to the rival list. The system created incentives for the formation of two stable coalitions, which alternated in power. However, in 2015, the new government eliminated it. Until then, coalitions could only present two candidates. The districts now have three to eight seats in the Chamber, and two to five in the Senate. Independent applications were permitted. The system has fragmented: in 2022, 22 parties acquired representation, now 18!
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