How Chile has voted and "not voted"
international |
politics / elections |
news report 
Sunday January 15, 2006 22:53
by iosaf
:-) its a Sunday, and that means "mass" things. & in Chile the mass did the voting thing, and because it is a *legal obligation* of Chilean citizenship when in residence and of suffrage age to vote...
Thus there really isn't a "not vote" count. But over 200,000 people have presented their documents in Chilean police stations today to prove they were more than 200km from their polling point. Considering Chile is a country which stretches for over 6,340 kilometres in length, its quite easy to dodge the polls.
There are two candidates, both of whom "qualified" because there's more than one round of voting.
Chile it would seem is a very democratic place.
BUT
it wasn't always that way. Oh no! Many Peruvians will tell you that Chileans have had a chip on their shoulder since their war back in the 19th century when Bolivia lost its seacoast. But other forward thinking types would point out that Bolivia still has a navy, complete with powerful admiral and we don't really need to look back at the 19th century but much _closer_ to what happened when Henry Kissinger (a popular newspaper columnist in the 50s) asked Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (his spanish teacher) to do "Chile's September 11".
Anyway, it seems Chile has just elected a woman, agnostic, socialist, twice divorced mother of three children to the job of being its President.
Her name is not Mary Mc Aleese.
nor is Mary Robinson or Indira Ghandi,
Margaret Thatcher or Angela Merckel.
Its :- Michelle Bachelet.
At around 00h00 Irish time tonight, she will have won the counting of votes. And on the 11th of March she will become the new President of Chile.
You'll read all about her in the papers tomorrow.
She will have succeeded in defeating Miguel Juan Sebastián Piñera Echenique who is one of the richest South Americans living in South America, and though he *came out* against Pinochet, still earned the money bit of his status as "Berlusconi of Latin America" under that particular "dictatorship".
It was a special dictatorship, henry Kissinger proved very adept at spanish.
And then this week I'll tell you about the nasty man whos running for the presidency of Peru who still worries about that war back in the 19th century and wants all Chilean investment out of Peru and cough cough "bolivia" with little "b".
Comments (4 of 4)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4I've been reading what little the Irish papers have had to offer about such things, and am left wanting to know much more about developments.
I'm very curious to know more about how Bolivia lost its sea coast. A nasty thing to do to a country is to leave it landlocked! - enormous economic consequences. And so, any info on how will Mr Morales tackle his country's problems?
BTW, links to sources in Spanish would also be interesting.
Thanks in advance,
Coilín.
Man you are quickly becoming one of my favourite commentators.
What do you think of Morales chances of dodging the CIA's "economic hit men" and if that does not work a real hit man.
Already hunting for info on the war you refered to. Also what US companies have investments in Bolivia's natural resources excluding coke of course
Just back from Chile, great place.
Basically, Bolivia 'lost' its coastline in a dispute over nitrate. Nitrate, it seems, was essential to nineteenth century industry, and was plentiful in the desert of north Chile and Peru/Bolivia. Anyway, Chile made an agreement with Bolivia that recognised its ownership of what is now the very north of Chile in return for an agreement that Bolivia wouldn't raise its export tariffs for 25 years. When Bolivia raised these, to the consternation of the Chilean bourgeoisie, Chile used the pretext to invade Bolivia, and its ally Peru. This is known as the war of the pacific of 1879. It ended up with Chilean troops taking Lima and Bolivia losing its coastal strip.
The war is still remembered in Chile. In Concepcion, for example, a Peruvian battleship (more of a little gunboat) captured from Peru is still displaed as a trophy. And more than 1000 streets, apparently, are named after Arturo Prat, a Chilean navy commander who died storming a Peruvian ship.
Anyway, it turns out that soon afterwards a nitrate substitue was found, and the gains of the war counted for little, plunging the Chilean economy into crisis.
A war for economic resources - some things never change!!!
Looking at the election, Bachelet is certainly a very interesting person. Her father was tortured and killed by Pinochet, her then boyfriend was disapeared, and herself and her mother were imprisoned and tortured before having to flee the country. She was on the left for a long time, being close to the Marxist group that nearly assisanted Pinochet in the 80s. After becoming decidely more centrist she served as Minister for Health and then Defence (the first woman in South America to do so).
You can get at some good links through Wikipedia. Just look up Bachelet.
the english entry on the 2006 Chilean presidency elections is not agreed yet and thus not up. Here's the Dec. 11 first round good biogs:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilean_presidential_election%2C_2005
The Peruvian / Chilean war is in fact very very important. It shaped the national political culture of citizens of both states to this day.
If you read the comments of my article on the Bolivian presidential crises and election using a screen search for "admiral" you'll get background on the Bolivian loss of coast, and indeed learn about their "flagship" the Bolivar which cruises the Plata river between Argentina and Paraguay though it has never touched Bolivian water or land.
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=70194
Now we all know the ·"right wing" has lost the chilean elections. And there will be no shortage of articles on Left sites about it. I have little time right now, so I want to move ye all on a bit....
I want to introduce you to a character to whom I briefly made reference in the "other Mr Bolivia : Who is García Linera? here :-
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=73654
His name is Humula. He is a "far-right" indiginous supporter of coca growers, peasants, military and the most rabidly "anti-Chilean" politician in South America.-
& he is running for the presidency of Peru.
& he's been backed by Chavez. & he shows you in a latin american sense the weird way "leftwing" and "rightwing" European philosophies and ideologies have gone through the "dialectic mincer".
To put it simply He's an "indiginous nazi" putting the "race" into "socialism". & here's how I first mentioned him... "a year ago"
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=68106
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