Madrid, November 16 (European Press) –
Polling stations in New Zealand opened their doors on Saturday to begin an election day in which Chileans will vote in the first round to elect the country’s next president and renew the House of Representatives and half of the Senate.
At eight o’clock in the morning on Sunday in New Zealand, that is, 16 hours before the official opening in Chilean territory, the two polling stations located in the cities of Auckland and Wellington allowed Chilean citizens residing in the country to exercise their right to vote.
64 countries will have voting sites where up to 160,000 Chilean citizens abroad will be able to elect a presidential candidate. The two candidates with the most votes must face each other on December 14 in the second round to finally succeed current President Gabriel Buric.
The Undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Gloria de la Fuente, was present at the opening ceremony of the first polling stations via video call, and announced that “as is customary at this time and on this occasion, at four o’clock in the evening (Saturday) in Chile, we begin the electoral process with votes abroad,” according to the Chilean newspaper “El Mercurio.”
Likewise, de la Fuente noted that Chilean foreign voting was up 20 percent, with as many as 427 tables in a total of 119 voting sites. Unlike those residing in Chilean territory, expatriates are not obligated to vote, nor do they choose to elect new representatives and senators.
In this first round of elections, Chileans will be able to choose between eight presidential candidates, with ruling party representative Janet Jara topping the opinion polls, but winning in the second round will be more complicated due to the larger number of right-wing candidates.
In this sense, the three most logical options on the right to advance to the second round are the far-right Jose Antonio Caste – who already faced Buric in the last elections – the standard-bearer of the traditional right Evelyn Matthi, and the libertarian Johannes Kaiser.
The chances of Jara – a member of the Communist Party who proposed leaving if she reached La Moneda – to become president will face a more than possible alliance between these candidates to vote for whoever is her opponent.
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