Election time

It's election time in Chile. Well to be fair, the first round of voting was last weekend so I am a little slow with this update, but it is an ongoing process here.

The way they run their elections is significantly different to in either Australia or New Zealand. They have two houses, deputies (of which there are many and they basically filter out the poor bills in the first round) and then the senators (of which there are fewer). This doesn't sound too different to an upper and lower house system to me, but I am still a long way from understanding either of these systems! They also have a president who they elect usually in two rounds of voting. If in the first round no one candidate obtains a majority they have a run-off vote the next month between the two mist popular candidates. This is usually what happens as apparently it is quite difficult to achieve a majority in the first round. This year there were 4 candidates, of whom three were strong. This is in contrast to other years when usually there are only two strong candidates (one centre right and one centre left). There was a split this year in the centre left coalition, and therefore two centre left candidates ran. Because of this, the original candidate for the centre left (Frei) actually ended up more on the right... very complicated but quite interesting.

Anyway, the most interesting thing in this story is that the first round of voting is finished, and Piñera (right) and Frei are in the run off election. This election takes place on the 17th of January, when many of the supporters of the right are on holiday. You can only vote in your electorate here, which means that a significant number of the voters on the right simply won't vote, because they are on holiday. The second run-off election is always held at the same time of year and the party on the right always has the same problem. Does this make it a truly democratic process? Isn't the whole idea of modern democracy that every person has an equal opportunity and right to vote?

Voting takes place on a Sunday, and all establishments serving alcohol close at 12pm on Saturday night, and you can't buy alcohol for the entire voting day. Apparently you have to be sober to vote. Actually, nearly everything is closed on voting day, supermarkets, restaurants, even the corner shop only opened in the afternoon. Made it difficult to find somewhere to eat... not only do you have to be sober but also hungry apparently.

Anyway, that is my take on the Chilean political system. There are of course many more ins and outs but I don't think I can explain them without a diagram (yes I have truly become a TESOL teacher - everything in diagrams).

Gotta go,
Chao y nos vemos pronto
KiwiKaz