SANTIAGO, Chile.- On December 14, Janet Jara and José Antonio Cast will face each other again in a match Conditional ballot For a greater role in the ballot boxes. more than 4.5 million new voters They entered the system under compulsory voting and changed the political map, challenging the ballot boxes and It pushed the ruling party into a particularly negative scenario.
This change began to appear at the ballot boxes. This week, a study by the Citizens’ Committee of the Universidad del Desarolo A Extensive feature by José Antonio Cast In surface runoff: will reach 61% Compared to 39% for Janet Jara. The result seems to confirm that this new bloc of voters does influence preferences.
This emerging electoral body was consolidated into a Political exhaustion scenario After two failed constitutional processes and an urgent demand for security. Unlike 2021, when the definition pitted Gabriel Buric against José Antonio Cast, there has now emerged a bloc of new voters – 19.71% – who found in Franco Parisi channel for Expressing distance and discomfort from traditional politics.
The shift in social composition modified the beginning of the campaign. “Between the 2021 presidential second round and the first round of this year, Chile added more than 4.5 million new voters thanks to compulsory voting: they There are more men than women and young people from the middle, lower and lower social classes“,” Rodrigo Meléndez, deputy executive director of the Res Publica Institute, told LA NACION.
The first round also presented a more specific social picture of these voters. the Most new voters are between 18 and 40 years oldbelongs to the lower, middle and lower classes and Lives outside the metropolitan area. Analysts agree that this is a segment with low historical participation, interrupted courses of action, and a distant relationship with the political system. This combination reshaped the electoral map and increased the weight of the regions.
“The Parisian voter, on the other hand, mainly includes people disillusioned with politics. Some of them are new voters, but there are also those who have voted for him before,” Meléndez added.
“By analyzing the results of the presidential elections and comparing them to the parliamentary elections, we can see that a Parisian voter in the north of the country comes mainly from those who vote left, while in the center and the south they vote right. Although Parisian presents himself as a ‘centrist’, the composition of his voters is closer to that of the ‘centre’. Collector filter‘, There is no clear political position“, stated the expert.
This scenario forced an immediate reaction from Gaara and Kast’s orders, moving the discussion to Security, inflation, employment and immigrationIn a context characterized by the search for concrete solutions rather than ideological alignments.
“The Parisian voter is mostly a citizen Anti-elite and highly individualisticFrom the region, he belongs to the emerging middle class and interacts with its demands… although he is not a loyal voter for the parties. You will be attracted to that candidate who represents your issues in a practical way that is far from ideological doctrines.Hernan Campos, an academic at the UDP Faculty of Political Science, said in an interview with this medium.
From another perspective, Melendez discovered a recent pattern. What sets this committed voter apart is that He does not know what he wants politically.He added that he is not usually interested in public discussions.
“So, it seems to provide a natural response to He rejected what was offered to him when he had to voteHe summed up by saying: “He rejected two constitutional proposals, and he also rejected the government in last year’s local elections, which gave a very good result to the opposition.”
Ricardo Gonzalez, director of the Laboratory of Social Surveys and Analysis at Adolfo Ibáñez University, noted that this segment shares specific social and emotional traits.
He stated that the “new electorate” that emerges under compulsory voting is not a homogeneous bloc, but shares some general characteristics: it comes mainly from the lower and lower middle sectors, shows low political interest, high institutional distrust, and weak or no ideological identity. According to him, “They are people who are historically distant from the political system and have high levels of dissatisfaction with governments, relate to politics from a distance and make decisions later than traditional voters.”
This diagnosis is not shared by all specialists. “It’s not necessarily a new electorate. It’s just the same as it always is, it’s just the most volatile elements that determine elections. About 50% of voters vote for choices based on ideology or platform. And those are consistent voters for each candidate. The other half are Disaffected and uninterested voterssaid Mario Herrera, a political analyst at the University of Talca.
“They tend to vote more for short-term offers and short-term expectations than for ideological issues. This is exactly the image of the Parisian voter… They People who are able to move smoothly across the ideological spectrumHe added: “Those who do not have a specific political identity and who have suffered from the crisis of expectations in the Chilean model.”
Herrera pointed out the key to the process: “The voter who determines the elections is still very dissatisfied and continues to have the same priorities, but is more volatile than before because there are different proposals and approaches between the candidates.”
The dominant priorities remained constant in the first round: Personal security, inflation, employment and immigration.
“We can identify that there are some issues that have characterized the electoral tone in Chile in an episodic way, even in the new voter, such as public order and security, the fight against drug trafficking, illegal immigration, economic growth and the labor market, all of which are embodied in a better way by the opposition than by the ruling party,” Meléndez said.
“Their motivations are firmly rooted in everyday experience: security, economic recession, migration pressures,” Gonzalez added.
At the same time, a new wing was opened in the Republican candidate’s campaign. Kast decided not to participate in the debate organized by La Radio, Mega and Diario Financhero, scheduled to take place on Sunday, which raised public questions from the ruling party. Jara accused him of lacking courage, and stressed that if he was sure of his ideas, “he should be able to defend them publicly” and respond to proposals that – according to her – were still not transparent. The criticism was based on his performance in the 2021 debates, when Cast was at a disadvantage against Buric.
Experts agree that this part will be decisive in the outcome of the elections. Melendez added, “The new electorate will be decisive when determining the winner in the second round, because it represents approximately 45% of the electoral list.” “It is not that José Antonio Caste has an advantage because he is a member of the opposition or of the right, but rather that Janet Jara is at a disadvantage because she is the government’s candidate.”.
With three weeks remaining, the outcome will depend on voters’ behavior at the polls.