Chile: Daniel Jadue and Gabriel Boric will settle the …

From Santiago

A few minutes before the clock strikes at midnight on Wednesday and with that the legal limit for registrations for the presidential primaries, the tension between the Chilean left has not diminished in the offices of the Chilean Electoral Service (SERVEL) in the heart of Santiago. Finally, it will be Daniel Jadue (Communist Party) and Gabriel Boric (Democratic Revolution) who will face each other in the opposition primary which will take place on July 18.

The first, mayor reelected this weekend for the municipality of Recoleta, conducted the polls two years ago thanks to a well-articulated speech, focused on social issues and the right price., establishment of pharmacies, opticians and popular real estate. Architect, with great territorial preparation, self-proclaimed feminist and secularist, and of Palestinian origin, his figure is perhaps the greatest leadership to emerge from the Chilean left in the last decade.

The second, one of the faces of the Broad Front, a conglomerate of parties that emerged after the great student mobilizations of 2011. With great generational, intellectually prepared, sometimes contradictory leadership (he had emphatically indicated that he would not be a candidate), he was one of the leaders of the November 2019 Peace Accord which, after a month of “ social outbreak ”, declared the beginning of the process. Even if for many, this saved President Sebastián Piñera from possible impeachment. In fact, the same PC was taken out of the process.

The agreement with the PS which was not

Five hours earlier, the scenario was different: the PC and the FA had reached an agreement with the Socialist Party to compete for elect a candidate to participate in the presidential elections on November 21. A scenario where Joaquín Lavín (Independent Democratic Union, of Pinochet origin), reelected this weekend as mayor of the wealthy municipality of Las Condes, emerges as the big card of the right. The primaries of the ruling party – parties grouped under the name of Chile Vamos -, which will be held on the same date, will also include the former finance minister (and opponent insisting on the withdrawal of 10% of the AFP), Ignacio Briones of Political Evolution (EVOPOLI), former Minister of Defense Mario Desbordes (National Renovation) and former Minister of the Interior and Sebastián Sichel (independent). On another side, the far right José Antonio Kast (Republican Party) has confirmed his presidential candidacy, but will not participate in the primaries. .

The signs paved the way: pre-candidates such as Pablo Vidal (New Deal) and veteran Heraldo Muñoz (Party for Democracy, PPD) have applied to favor Paula Narváez (PS), former minister of both governments by Michelle Bachelet and who until a few months ago I worked with her at the UN, being explicitly supported by the former president.

All this, as the DC experienced an earthquake following the resignation of its president Fuad Chahin and the declining candidacy of Senator and former Minister Bachelet, Ximena Rincón. All of this as a direct consequence of the center-left defeat after last weekend’s mega-election, where The left-wing independents, the Broad Front and the Communist Party were the big winners for mayors, regional governors and conventional voters.

Curiously, in the midst of the crisis, Muñoz, the face of a party born to bring together different tendencies opposed to Pinochet for the 1989 plebiscite and which had a lot of power during the Transition, even took the time to regret the closure of the popular movement. El Hoyo restaurant – famous for the “earthquake” drink and its rural gastronomy – where he announced his candidacy in October of last year.

Filtered audio

Something more delicate was the “leak” of an audio, where Rincón denounced that he and the president of the PS, Álvaro Elizalde, would not go to a primary school anyway if she was still a candidate. “It’s called veto and intimidation. Then they don’t even talk to my party (DC) and they try to go with the PC and the FA and now they run to DC (…). We are losing our dignity ”. As if that wasn’t enough for Rincón, it was also known that the current Senate Speaker and the party’s best-placed figure, Yasna Provoste, were asked to come forward for what she answered, in her classic style that “has always been available for the good of the party and for Chile to face the challenges”.

According to various sources who were at SERVEL all day The PS’s plan was to move away from DC centrism, after 30 years of alliance, and move closer to the left “winning” in the mega-elections on Saturday and Sunday. After an hour of meeting between Elizalde and the leaders of the PC and the FA, the politicians of the Democratic Revolution and the UNIR movement of the deputy and former minister Bachelet, Marcelo Díaz, opposed the participation of Muñoz, who would return to the elementary school, given the tensions he had had in recent weeks with Jadue due to the structure of the elementary school. But the straw that would have made the camel overflow are the attempts of the PS to compromise the quotas of senators and deputies of this party with the PPD. In other words, the same political cuisine that characterized the transition and that new social movements have called into question.

Yes indeed, the soap opera ended with the wrath of Narváez, who should compete in a much more favorable context for Jadue and Boric, to the point of accusing a “veto” and that “they do not guarantee the governance of Chile”. The Democratic Revolutionary Party – belonging to the broad front – also lamented Boric’s party for excluding Narváez. “This is not the time for exclusions, we have the opportunity to transform Chile and build a majority, let the people decide,” said its president Catalina Pérez on social networks. In any case, the registration deadline will be August 24 and surprises are always expected.

A defeated Elizalde said an anthology line after the failed meetings: “Today, as calls for unity have been made at the time of definitions, we are informed of a veto for certain political forces that support the candidacy of Paula Narváez. It is shameful, we find it regrettable. Salvador Allende’s party is not humiliated ”.