By Jaime Ortega.
Structural changes in health and education, fight inequality and poverty, encourage savings, regulate natural resource extraction. These are some of the plans which Chilean presidential candidates had to include for the first open primary election in Chile.
As expected, Michelle Bachelet, the former president of Chile from 2006 to 2010, and former director of UN Women, won the election with approximately 74% of the votes cast. Following the results, released late on Sunday, the former president thanked his voters support for this election day and was established as the official flagship of the New Majority pact.
“We will keep fighting to reach La Moneda”, Socialist presidential candidate said after the results were made public. “It was a fraternal primary campaign, but with much emphasis on ideas and certainly differences.”
“ but also similarities and similarities,” said the former president of Chile.
“I am convinced that the next few days we will have to look forward as we continue to work, because I know we will continue to walk together,” added the former head of UN Women.
Along with Bachelet, in the covenant of the New Majority, was presented the finance minister, Andres Velasco, former Democrat Mayor Claudio Orrego and José Antonio Gómez a radical supporter for change.
In the covenant of the Alliance, now governs businessman Sebastián Piñera, which competed with former Defense Minister Andres Allamand (National Renewal) and former Economy Minister Pablo Longueira (Independent Democratic Union), who beat his fellow for a few thousand votes in a bitter dispute.
After more than two decades of democracy, Chile premiered an open primary system and binded to elect the presidential candidates of the two major political blocs in the country, known popularly as The Alliance and the Coalition. The winners of two major coalitions of Chile, along with several minority candidates, will be the candidates in the upcoming November 17 elections.
The start of the electoral process was scheduled at 08:00 local time, but the winter cold and freezing temperatures caused the polling stations of the presidential primary to soon order a settle for something more than expected. By 08:30 tey only had a table set up in the National Stadium in Santiago, one of the largest polling stations in the capital, with more than 200 tables.
Few, but more voters than expected.
Gradually it started encouraging people to vote and 13 million Chilean that took the electoral suffrage by nearly three million people waiting to cast their vote. Remember that those who could not vote were affiliated with a minor party. They finally casted their vote just over 20% of the eligible population, nearly twice as many people as originally expected. Across the country ran 13,538 polling stations, of 13,541 tables that were convened.
All polls agree that Bachelet will be the next president of the country to change Sebastián Piñera, current president of the country till March 2014. The main proposal of the former president’s tax reform is to raise more than 8,000 million, or 3% of GDP, which earmarked, in part, to a profound change in the education system focused on gratitude and funds to raise the quality of learning.
Last week there were tense moments after the eviction of thousands of students who had taken dozens of schools across the country and some polling stations. In the eviction there were 151 detainees, almost all minors.
The police operation came hours after a massive demonstration for free education ended with violent clashes between students and police. More than four years after that the education crisis started affecting the country.
Again, Chileans living in different parts of the world made a symbolic vote as a way to protest the lack of progress in the law that allows voting abroad. The initiative took the name ‘Make your vote fly’ and was taken on place in cities such as Paris, Madrid, Sydney, in the state of California, in the United States.
