Chile's local elections: Implications

CHILE - In Brief 28 Oct 2024 by Robert Funk

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A year out from its next presidential vote, Chile held elections on Sunday for local authorities. These include governors, mayors and city council members. Local elections are seen as a barometer of political strength. On Sunday night President Gabriel Boric said that the results were “sweet and sour” for all sectors, and indeed, in an election with so many candidates and positions at play, there can be something for everyone. Parties will look to the total popular vote, number of council members, number of mayors, and the mayors of the most important and populous towns and cities to look for signs of success. Even so, Boric was being optimistic. The left took a beating. One example: the left wing coalition won 40 fewer mayoralties than in 2021, while the right gained 36 (as of time of writing). This is not a good result for the governing coalition. The landslide loss of Santiago to the right is especially painful. The UDI’s Jaime Bellolio’s win in the upper middle-class suburb of Providencia, replacing the outgoing mayor Evelyn Matthei, puts a lot of wind in Matthei’s sails as she now leaves city hall to concentrate on her presidential campaign. At the same time, there were some bright spots for the left. Some of their symbolic nemeses lost mayoralty races in Puente Alto, Las Condes and Viña del Mar. In the huge middle class Santiago suburb of Maipu, the Frente Amplio’s (FA) Tomas Vodanovic won a whopping 70% of the vote. His tremendous popularity and political talent places him at the top of the list of future presidential candidates for the FA. Moreover, a look at city council members nation-wide shows that the center-left did quite well. This points to one of the f...