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Along with the categorical triumph of the Approval and the Constitutional Convention, with more than 78% support, the plebiscite opened a discussion on participation. While from the right the idea has been installed that only slightly more than 50% of the electoral roll voted, the unobjectionable fact is that yesterday more than 7 and a half million voters attended the polls in the midst of a pandemic, “the largest vote in absolute numbers of the history of the Republic ”, as highlighted this morning by the President of the Servel Board of Directors, Patricio Santamaría, in the delivery of the last electoral bulletin.
The Electoral Service report reported 7,562,173 voters, with a percentage of 50.90% of the register, a high figure considering that the process took place in times of pandemic.
The figure exceeds the number of voters, for example, the Yes and No plebiscite of October 5, 1988, and breaks the participation barrier since voluntary voting has been in force in Chile, which has not exceeded 49 since 2012. 2%, Santamaría said.
Although the disaggregated data is still to be known to deepen the analysis and know, for example, the impact of the young vote, the analyst Axel callis, director of TuInfluyes, is emphatic in pointing out that it is simply the “election with the most voters, the one with the highest volume of voters, the one with the highest quantitative participation.”
Callís assures The counter that analyzes that seek to relativize participation forget that there is a situation of “fear of the coronavirus, many people have infected or elderly relatives.” “Is it what was expected? No, but in a normal environment. But we are not in a period of normality. And it is doubly valuable because it was done in a pandemic environment. That 7 and a half million people vote with 27 communes in quarantine, with half of the country in a still delicate health stage, is a great value. It is valuable, for example, that in 3 regional capital communes such as Arica, Punta Arenas and Puerto Montt they have raised their vote despite being in quarantine ”, he adds.
From the right, the strategy has been clear in spoiling participation. “Half of the Chileans did not vote. The supporters of the Approve, all voted. This is not a triumph for all Chileans as the President said, but their greatest defeat, “the Republican Party leader commented on Twitter. Jose Antonio Kast. Meanwhile, the former minister Marcela cubillos bounded in Channel 13, “That it cannot be celebrated that there was a great turnout (today), because half of the Chileans did not vote. We have a challenge to participate because half of the Chileans stayed at home ”.
“We cannot act with that conformism of celebrating that there was a great turnout, it was a great turnout to be in times of a pandemic, but we have a pending challenge, because when half of Chileans don’t vote on something as relevant as this it is also important (…). In percentage it is similar to the presidential one (of 2017), it is half ”, said the current executive director of Libertad y Desarrollo.
For Callís, the strategy of the right has nothing unprecedented. “In every election where there is a voluntary vote, there are people who want to take over the ‘non-voter’, but the non-voter is very diverse. In this case, there is an obvious non-voter, which are the elderly who apparently abstained from voting or people with chronic diseases, there is still an important group of people who will not vote for logistical issues, there is a relevant group of people who do not vote. they vote for various reasons. But trying to monopolize the voters is stupid, ”he emphasizes.
The “participatory revolution”
But there are also other data to take into account for the analysis. Marta Lagos He focused on the differences at the regional level in terms of participation, which means that in five regions of the south of the country electoral participation fell, compared to 2017. Meanwhile, in the north there is an increase. For example, Antofagasta increased from 40% to 48%, Atacama increased from 44% to 48% and Tarapacá increased from 38% to 45%.
Contrary to what happened in the capital, in Biobío the electoral participation fell from 51% to 47%; in La Araucanía it went from 48% in 2017 to 40%; in the Maule from 52% to 45%; in Los Ríos it fell from 48% to 45%; and in Los Lagos from 46% to 43%.
What happened in Santiago is that, indeed, “there was a ‘participatory revolution’ in the communes in urgent need of social guarantees,” points out Marta Lagos. “There was an important recovery of the vote in the RM, especially in the poorest communes and most abandoned by public policy, such as La Pintana, which increased 15 points in participation.”
Callís complements this point, pointing out that “the popular world participated in a way that it did not do so many years ago, Puente Alto, La Pintana, Renca, that means that there is a lot of hope and a lot of faith in what is coming … the popular world wants a change and that was demonstrated yesterday and that is significant ”.
In contrast, “the regions that decreased the most in participation are communes with a still significant presence of the coronavirus and are the ones that voted the most in the second presidential round. This combination of coronavirus plus piñerismo in the second round was the one that participated the least, ”says the director of TuInfluyes.
Regarding the reading of the vote expressed yesterday, Callís adds that the result is “a message to the political parties, a message to the elite that they cannot brag about this, it is not a check to date. So no one should appropriate the Approval, the Approval is diverse and popular, it is a hopeful Approval but it is infinite, and it places tasks on the parties, such as giving conditions to independents that they can agree to, seats for indigenous peoples, etc. ”.
Mandatory vote
At the same time, another issue that is installed again with the plebiscite is that of compulsory voting. “First practical consequence of the plebiscite of October 25, 2020: we must return to compulsory voting. Last night only one out of every two Chileans voted, ”emphasized Marta Lagos, an idea that the lawyer and academic also share. Agustin Squella.
In an interview with Cooperative radio, the academic affirmed that the voluntary vote “was a very bad decision” taken by the political world: “Hopefully we dare to return to the compulsory vote,” indicated the 2009 National Prize for Humanities and Social Sciences.
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