Editor's Note:
Carlos Alberto Montaner is a writer, journalist, and CNN contributor.
His columns are published in dozens of newspapers in Spain, the United States and Latin America.
Montaner is also vice president of the Liberal International.
The opinions expressed here are solely his.
(CNN Spanish) -
On Sunday, November 21, the first round of the Chilean elections is scheduled.
If nothing extraordinary happens or if no one gets more than 50% of the vote, which would seem certain, the second round will be almost a month later, on Sunday, December 19.
The presidency, the entire Congress and part of the Senate will be renewed.
According to “Public Square”, in the Cadem poll, the voting intention favors José Antonio Kast of the Republican Party, characterized by some as a right-wing populist, with 21% of the votes, in a technical tie with Gabriel Boric, of Approve Dignity, also called by some a left-wing populist who has made an agreement with the Communist Party of Chile.
Accumulate 20% of the preferences.
In third place appears Yasna Provoste of the Christian Democracy with 12% and in fourth place Sebastián Sichel, with just 7%. The latter is punished for his closeness to President Sebastián Piñera, a very unpopular person after the appearance of the Pandora papers, in which it is reported that he had benefited from a contract obtained by a family business abroad, something that he denies vehemently.
Since there are seven candidates, it is reasonable to note the percentages obtained by the last three in the polls, highlighting, of course, that it would be almost impossible for them to triumph in the November 21 elections: Franco Parisi (6%), from the Party of the People, Marco Enríquez-Ominami (4%) who calls himself "progressive" and has the international support of the "Puebla Group", and Eduardo Artés (3%) of the Chilean Communist Party (Proletarian Action).
[Not to be confused with the PC of Chile].
In the second round, anything can happen.
If José Antonio Kast faces Gabriel Boric, 16% say they would not vote.
Now, if the second round were between Sebastian Sichel and Kast, 28% say they would not vote, compared to 18% who would not vote if Boric faced Sichel.
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Kast was deemed the winner of both debates, with 32% at the second chance.
That is another way to predict the outcome of the contest.
In any case, both candidates will frantically try to conquer the center, especially in the second round.
In Chile, the universal rule of elections is also fulfilled: the vast majority is placed between 4 and 7 on a scale of 10, where 1 is radicalism to the left and 10 is radicalism to the right.
Kast could go so far as to say that his opponent Gabriel Boric is very young and inexperienced at 35, because he has never had to work and has been permanently a “professional revolutionary”.
He will probably accuse you of being a communist without being one.
Gabriel Boric, for his part, could attack Kast with the past of his father, who arrived in Chile in 1950, after having been a soldier in the German Army in World War II.
But that does not make Kast a Nazi or a fascist.
He is, no doubt, a conservative Catholic, perhaps a Pinochetist, but little else.
It is often said that during wars the first casualty is the truth.
Really, that can happen in elections.
