Chile: Low Turnout Marks Primary Elections

A high rate of voters' abstention and electoral irregularities marked Chile's primary elections for regional governors and mayors held on Sunday.

RELATED: 

Chile: Police Quell New Protests Demanding Piñera Step Down

Despite 14 million Chileans were eligible to vote, 95 percent abstained from voting. The Electoral Service (Servel) informed that 147,608 people cast their ballots, of which 130,510 were valid, 10,096 were considered void and 7,002 were left blank. 

Having counted 99.57 percent of the tables, the Constituent Unity (CU) secured 251,485 of the votes, the Broad Front (BF) gained 66,896 votes, while Chile Vamos (CV) obtained 41,814 and Ecologists and Independents 6,785 for a total of 366,980 votes for governors posts. 

Meanwhile, preliminary results showed that of the 122,332 ballots cast for mayoral posts, CV ran first with 94,916, followed by BF with 22,276 votes, the Ecologists and Independents with 5,140 votes.

Several accusations of electoral irregularities were voiced after some voting stations had not opened or had not been convoked. 

"I could not exercise my right to vote in the primary. The table was closed and not merged with other functioning tables. I asked Servel to file a complaint, but there was no book of complaints," Party for Democracy (PDP) President Heraldo Muñoz twitted.

"Not even for the current, I saw so low participation, regrettable. I believe that there was not much information, even personally I found out by arriving here what the primaries were for... I don't know any candidate," electoral vocal Sebastian Gonzalez said.  

Regional elections were scheduled to take place in October this year but were postponed due to the holding of the Constituent Plebiscite. They will be held on 11 April 2021 in order to elect regional governors.