“What is at stake for Santiago is very important,” the incumbent governor and candidate for reelection, Claudio Orrego, said. He recalled that although the metropolitan area has eight million inhabitants and enormous potential, there are also great challenges such as insecurity, inequality and climate emergency.
In the elections of October 26th and 27th, the independent candidate won 38.58 percent of the votes and was very close to victory, but did not reach the 40% necessary to win in the first round. Therefore, in the runoff he will face the candidate of the right-wing Renovación Nacional party, Francisco Orrego, who got 27.6 percent of the votes, and is the bet of the opposition coalition Chile Vamos.
On November 24th, the governors of Arica and Parinacota, Antofagasta, Atacama, Coquimbo, Valparaíso, O’Higgins, Maule, Biobío, La Araucanía and Los Lagos will also go to runoff.
Only the top representatives of Los Ríos and Ñuble (from the Socialist Party); Tarapacá (independent candidate associated with the Party for Democracy) and Magallanes (independent linked to the Radical Party), all center-left, won in the first round.
A key issue in the elections will be the alliances between parties and the capacity of the candidates to convince undecided voters, since in the first round the number of null and blank votes reached 2.3 million.
mh/jha/car
