Chile's Prosecutor's Office Probes an Alleged False Candidature

Chile's O'Higgins Regional Prosecutor's Office Saturday opened an investigation into the complaint about an allegedly false candidate registration for a council post in the ongoing subnational elections.

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Paola Soto made the complaint about being registered by the Independent Regionalist Party (PRI) as a councilwoman candidate for the San Fernando post.

"It is something that I did not seek at all and I did not even find out about it from the political party, nor from the Electoral Service...The address is not mine, it is not my signature, it is not my telephone number", Soto warned.

Electoral Service (SERVEL) Board of Directors chief Andres Tagle announced that the investigation was presented on falsification of a public instrument grounds.

The meme reads, "Luis Soto, a street vendor, sells pencils to mark the ballots in the 2021 Elections on the outskirts of polling stations in Valparaiso."

This weekend subnational elections will fill positions in the Constituent Convention, Regional Governments, Mayors, and Municipal Councils. Following complaints about delays in voting tables' installation early in the morning, SERVEL confirmed that 94.3 percent of 46,087 polling centers were ready for the voting process. 

At least 184,000 ballot boxes were set up nationwide so over 14 million Chileans can cast their votes on Saturday or Sunday from 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Health Minister Enrique Paris reported a high COVID-19 positivity rate in the Metropolitan Region and other regions amid the elections. Chile has reported 1,280,252 COVID-19 cases and 27.734 related fatalities since the start of the pandemic.