¿Chile de todos?

Hi all!

I want to preface this entry by saying that one of my biggest regrets while here has been my failing to get informed on Chilean politics and current events. My biggest sources of news have been the complaints of my host parents and the huge signs placed over building entryways proclaiming worker strikes.

However ill-informed I might be, it has been impossible to miss the national presidential and parliamentary elections that occurred here on November 17. During the week leading up to election day, the huge billboards and posters that had covered the streets and sides of buildings since I arrived in July multiplied ten-fold. There were also pamphlets (either passed out by campaigners in the streets during rush hour or apparently thrown by the hundreds out of windows by the looks of some areas of the city) and men who rode around in the back of patriotically decorated campaign trucks with everything from bullhorns to very sophisticated sound systems alternatingly blasting cumbia music and lobbing campaign promises.

The campaign ads were different from the ones you see back home because they all, without fail, starred a picture of the candidates. I don't think of Chile as a very image-conscious society, so I wonder if the pictures indicate a more personal relationship between the people and their leaders. Regardless, it's definitely quite a risk to put your face out there on the streets of Valpo: I saw many pirate-patched eyes and surprisingly realistic-looking drawn-in mustaches, to mention some of the more benign incidents.

Michelle: Everyone's Chile

Evelyn: Let's win together

Among the multitude of candidates, the two most prevalent were the two front-runners for President, two women: Evelyn Matthei and Michelle Bachelet. Bachelet, who served as President of Chile from 2006 and 2010,  represented the liberal Socialist Party promising constitutional reforms, free higher education, and to diminish the ever-growing gap between rich and poor. Evelyn represented the conservative right Independent Democratic Union party aligned with current president Sebastian Piñera and his policies of privatization and lowering taxes.

The fascinating underlying story here is that these two women have known each other since childhood. Their fathers were both Air Force generals before the 1973 military coup. Under the dictatorship Evelyn's father remained with the military, becoming a member of the junta that was responsible for the torture and death in prison of Michelle's dissenting father. Michelle herself was tortured and exiled.

So, I imagine that for these two women and for most Chileans, the race was underlyingly, an emotionally charged choice between two different versions of history that in turn shape the vision of the country's future.

As expected, Michelle won 46% of the vote, a clear plurality, but not enough to stop the run-off election scheduled for December in which she will again compete (and almost certainly win) against Evelyn, who received just 25%. For a more accurate summary, here's an article from the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-24977405

I was lucky enough to get get to go with my host mom to her polling place on election day. We drove across the city to a school that has been assigned to her based on gender and her national id number - which means that my host dad actually goes to a different, much closer place to vote. The procedure was familiar, if a little antiquated with paper ballots, cubbies with plastic sheets for privacy, and stamps for sealing the ballots before dropping each into its assigned box. Unfortunately, I wasn't allowed to take pictures.

This was the first general election in which voting was not a requirement. And from what I've heard, turn out, especially among the young people who like to protest and demand action so loudly and frequently, was disappointingly low. All the Chileans I know voted, but were very careful not to show up to the polls before eleven in the morning, because apparently the first people who show up to vote are commandeered (ie legally required) to fill-in for the awol summoned volunteers who are either no longer alive or chose not to devote their entire day to sitting at a table and checking voters' IDs against often inaccurate rosters.

What really struck me was the seriousness in the air. This is a country where for 17 years of military rule, there was not political expression, opposition, or voting. That memory is still fresh, so voting is by no means a burden or a throw-away. It occupies an entire day during which all businesses shut down and the only people on the streets seem to be heading in streams either to or away from polling places.

That did not stop my host mom from stopping to buy celebratory flowers.

(The title means "Everyone's Chile?")