Change for Chile
Chile has just had elections, the first with compulsory voting. They voted for the Chamber of Deputies, half the Senate and the first round for the President.
The President is currently Gabriel Boric, who can’t stand again. He is a socialist and not very popular with a -30% net approval rating. An uber-woke constitution he proposed was rejected massively a couple of years ago.
The results of the first round of voting was:
- Jeanette Jara, Communist 27%
- Jose Kast, Republican (populist right) 24%
- Franco Parisi, Party of the People (centre right) 20%
- Johannes Kaiser, Libertarian 14%
- Evelyn Matthei, Democratic Union (conservative right), 12%
It goes to a run-off of the top two. One would regard Kast as the favourite as the four right candidates got 70% between them.
In the Chamber of Deputies the left parties got 44% and centrist and right parties got 54%. One in five votes were blank.
However the left parties did gain a majority in the Senate.