The numbers are the numbers. This Sunday, nearly 13 million Chileans and foreigners eligible to vote voted. 82% of the registers in a historic election, for being the first to be carried out according to the new rules: automatic registration and compulsory voting. If in 2021 the first round attracted 7 million citizens, that number has almost doubled.
Since voting became compulsory again, Chilean politics has stopped speaking to a limited, more politicized and more homogeneous electorate. Today, elections are decided by millions of people who have spent years away from the polls. And these new voters, pragmatic, critical, wary of any label – left, right or center – have, since they necessarily entered the scene, determined the results of all elections. And this Sunday was no exception.
The presidential and parliamentary results show us a heterogeneous Chile without strong ideological definitions. As much as the right insists that the country has turned on its axis, there appear to be other currents running through Chilean society: the desire for order and change, for social advancement and opportunity, for protection and well-being, for punishment of elites and demands for quick solutions.
But let’s go back to the numbers.
On the side of the left and progressivism, it should not be hidden that although Jeannette Jara took first place with 26.8% and secured passage to the second round, the results are lower than expected. José Antonio Kast, with 23.9%, is too close to him and the ballot It is presented as a mission that some describe as impossible.
Evelyn Matthei, for her part, suffered the deepest defeat of the day. The Chilean candidate Vamos went from being the undisputed winner and the favorite of the business and political elite, to the protagonist of the worst result that her sector has achieved in the presidential elections: she sank to fifth place with 12.54% of the preferences, behind Parisi and Kaiser.
At the same time, at the antipodes of that defeat and defying poll predictions, Franco Parisi, despite not having reached the round of 16, was crowned as one of the main winners. In an upward spiral, he reached third place with almost 20% of the votes, far behind Johanes Kaiser (13.93%), also with good results.
A quick glance is enough to highlight that the result of the first presidential round marks a new milestone in the decline of the political forces of the transition (already in 2021 the candidate of Democratic Socialism had placed fifth and that of Chile Vamos in fourth) and, above all, in the emergence of challenging proposals, such as those of Kaiser and Parisi, candidacies which, despite being very different in their narratives and programs, more effectively capture popular and middle-class segments, especially in the regions.
We need to look at these emerging alternatives with more care and less prejudice. Listen to what they tell us about the country we live in.
What are the voters of Parisi or Kaiser looking for, what do they aspire to? What fears and resentments, but also what desires and dreams move there? What distrust does your approach to politics inspire? What made you see these candidates, despised by political elites, as attractive leaders?
If Parisi represents social ascent – from Las Rejas to La Dehesa -, the successful journey of those born without privileges, can he dialogue with the candidacy of a woman who has, to a certain extent, a similar path? Can Jeannette Jara speak to that Chile that aspires to something more: more consumption, more opportunities, more family and personal progress?
The Parisi phenomenon is not ideological, it is emotional and material. It is the vote of those who do not believe in the political elite. The vote of those who feel that the State is not arriving, that salaries are not enough, that crime is not decreasing. The vote of precarious workers and also of those who have been successful in well-paid sectors such as mining, of indebted entrepreneurs, of mothers who are heads of families, of young people without a clear future. Can progressivism enter into it? Shouldn’t these be precisely the sectors of the Chilean people in which the left and progressivism must take root?
For now, it is a precious opportunity that Jara can speak to you from a place where Kast cannot stop: from the concrete experience of someone who, coming from the bottom, has gone far, and who from his position of power has managed to impact people’s real lives with policies such as pension reform, reducing working hours and increasing the minimum wage.
And if Kaiser is the anti-establishmentthe honest one, the one who says what she thinks even if it’s not correct, will Jeannette Jara be able to gather, with honesty and frankness, some of those who have relied on him?
Let’s go back to the numbers.
Jeannette Jara must go from 26 to over 50%. We know very well that there is no favorable prognosis. We know by heart the analyzes that conclude with its future defeat: that the sum of right-wing candidates will reach 50%, that the right will obtain a majority in parliament, that Chile – and the world – is turning to the right, that the opposition candidate has been winning presidential elections for twenty years, that security and the economy are right-wing issues, that Chile is anti-communist, etc.
Even acknowledging the empirical support for this type of argument, beating around the bush gets you nowhere. The task of building an “unnatural” majority, composed of sectors of the population who for different reasons can find in Jeanette Jara a better representative of their interests, desires, pains and aspirations, is to go beyond mathematics and enter the realm of real politics. In that field, in politics, art is about making what seems impossible possible.
