Chile’s right on Sunday snatched dozens of mayoralties from the governing center-left coalition, in a boost to former Chilean president Sebastian Pinera, the front-runner to lead the conservative coalition in next year’s presidential election.
With more than 99 percent of results counted on Sunday night in local elections, the right-leaning Chile Vamos pact emerged as the big winner.
It won slightly more votes than Chilean President Michelle Bachelet’s left-leaning Nueva Mayoria coalition, despite the left going into the vote with a massive incumbent advantage.
Photo: EPA
Conservative candidates won the majority of key swing cities, including central Santiago, a municipality inside the capital that is considered an electoral bellwether.
“This reflects that residents are tired of incomplete promises,” said Felipe Alessandri, the conservative mayor-elect of Santiago. “Citizens have made their annoyance at the old practices of politicians clear, and they have made clear that they expect to be listened to.”
Voters have turned sour on Bachelet’s government after a series of corruption scandals, an ambitious reform drive that fell flat with many Chileans, and weak economic growth.
The results should benefit Pinera, a conservative politician and businessman who served as president from 2010 to 2014 between Bachelet’s two terms and is widely expected to seek a return to office.
“Sebastian Pinera is going to sleep with the presidential sash on tonight,” tweeted Patricio Navia, a political scientist at New York University and Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago. “What a beating for the Nueva Mayoria.”
The results were a further sign the political tide had shifted toward the right in Latin America, after electoral disappointments for left-wing candidates elsewhere in the region over the past year including in Argentina and Peru.
Independent parties — previously a non-player in Chilean politics — also outperformed, raising the possibility that Chile’s 26-year-old two-coalition system could rupture. An unaffiliated candidate won a shock upset in the mayor’s race in Valparaiso, one of Chile’s largest cities.
With disaffection with the entire political class running high, Sunday’s vote was also marked by relatively high abstention rates.
Bachelet, who is constitutionally barred from seeking re-election next year, lamented the low turnout in broadcast comments on Sunday night and acknowledged her coalition’s defeat.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not