Chilean here. Long answer: What its important to understand is that the chilean communist party is not really a big electoral force, until very very recently they got about 5% ob the presidential vote. But now they are part of the Nueva Mayoria, a coalition that got over 40% of the vote in the last election and as Concertación (Previous coalition that didnt include the comunist party) won the presidency the most times since the reinstauration of democracy. There is some respectable left and center left vote in the country BUT the coalition can only win if the center and center-rigth portions of the coalition decide the support them. The problem is that the more right wing parts of the coalition are already saying that they wont support a comunist candidate. I can see Jadue winning but if people from his own coalition are against him is going to be very hard. I do believe he can win a big part of the "nonpolitical but angry at the system" vote
Short answer: Yes if the centrists dont fuck around
I mean Im still hopeful, A year ago Jadue was justa random mayor (His city is bigger than Buttigieg even tho Chile is 20 times smaller than the US lol) and now he is the front runner. The backlash agaisnt the right wing since the protest is real and will hurt any of his main rivals. The only major problem is the is a ton of people that wont vote for him just because he is a communist. The election is in a year and a lot can change, hopefully for the better :)
erosandmagic and bamboo68 dissect it in a thread in this post better that I could explain. I can tell you that while you could consider Jadue himself a communist he has made it clear that if the chilean communist party comes to power in Chile it will by as a part of a coalition, not as an independent entity, and currently their coalition has some center and centerright parties so I dont think he would run on an actual communist agenda. It would still be a better agenda by far than any other politician.
Whats the deal with PCdoB? Im not very familiar with them.
i see. i'm cool with that, as long as their end goal is to establish socialism at some point (i can understand reform in the short or even medium term, using the government's tools to increase popularity of the communists, to mobilize people, etc)
PCdoB's history is a bit complicated, but the gist of it is that they're at very best reformists today, unlike PCB, which is an actual communist party (the original one, from the 20s and still going, albeit with a very small amount of members)
Interesting, thanks for the reply. Follow up: do you know what caused them to jump from like 5% of the vote to polling at 20%? Did it have to do with the big protests in the last year?
Yes, it did have a lot to do with the protests. Before october, as a mayor he was very well liked in his city, one of the politicians in the country with the best favorability ratings. He implemented succesful policies to give housing and medicine to people. But he was still a "small city mayor". No one would consider him a a posible presidential candidates, and meanwhile the politicans with the best polling as a candidate were hard right wingers. Along came the protest and there is a huge backlash against the right wing, most right wingers took a popularity hit, but the traditional center and center-left parties couldnt capitalize from the protests because they are seen as complicit in this neoliberal system (20 years in power and didnt changed anything), so there was a vacuum for an "antisystem outsider candidate" and Jadue, who was already very liked started jumping up the polls.
:(
About the sources most of what I have wrote I got from discusing politics in the dinner with my family (We fight a lot in the dinners lol) and we all use sources in spanish :/
I don't follow Chilean politics at all, I have no idea how their system works. Is this an actual possibility?
Chilean here. Long answer: What its important to understand is that the chilean communist party is not really a big electoral force, until very very recently they got about 5% ob the presidential vote. But now they are part of the Nueva Mayoria, a coalition that got over 40% of the vote in the last election and as Concertación (Previous coalition that didnt include the comunist party) won the presidency the most times since the reinstauration of democracy. There is some respectable left and center left vote in the country BUT the coalition can only win if the center and center-rigth portions of the coalition decide the support them. The problem is that the more right wing parts of the coalition are already saying that they wont support a comunist candidate. I can see Jadue winning but if people from his own coalition are against him is going to be very hard. I do believe he can win a big part of the "nonpolitical but angry at the system" vote
Short answer: Yes if the centrists dont fuck around
Oh so just the perpetual reason we can't have nice things.
I mean Im still hopeful, A year ago Jadue was justa random mayor (His city is bigger than Buttigieg even tho Chile is 20 times smaller than the US lol) and now he is the front runner. The backlash agaisnt the right wing since the protest is real and will hurt any of his main rivals. The only major problem is the is a ton of people that wont vote for him just because he is a communist. The election is in a year and a lot can change, hopefully for the better :)
is he an actual communist or is it just like with PCdoB here in brazil?
erosandmagic and bamboo68 dissect it in a thread in this post better that I could explain. I can tell you that while you could consider Jadue himself a communist he has made it clear that if the chilean communist party comes to power in Chile it will by as a part of a coalition, not as an independent entity, and currently their coalition has some center and centerright parties so I dont think he would run on an actual communist agenda. It would still be a better agenda by far than any other politician.
Whats the deal with PCdoB? Im not very familiar with them.
i see. i'm cool with that, as long as their end goal is to establish socialism at some point (i can understand reform in the short or even medium term, using the government's tools to increase popularity of the communists, to mobilize people, etc)
PCdoB's history is a bit complicated, but the gist of it is that they're at very best reformists today, unlike PCB, which is an actual communist party (the original one, from the 20s and still going, albeit with a very small amount of members)
Interesting, thanks for the reply. Follow up: do you know what caused them to jump from like 5% of the vote to polling at 20%? Did it have to do with the big protests in the last year?
Yes, it did have a lot to do with the protests. Before october, as a mayor he was very well liked in his city, one of the politicians in the country with the best favorability ratings. He implemented succesful policies to give housing and medicine to people. But he was still a "small city mayor". No one would consider him a a posible presidential candidates, and meanwhile the politicans with the best polling as a candidate were hard right wingers. Along came the protest and there is a huge backlash against the right wing, most right wingers took a popularity hit, but the traditional center and center-left parties couldnt capitalize from the protests because they are seen as complicit in this neoliberal system (20 years in power and didnt changed anything), so there was a vacuum for an "antisystem outsider candidate" and Jadue, who was already very liked started jumping up the polls.
So no. Got it. FR though, thanks for the effort-post; are there any English language sources I can read about this?
:(
About the sources most of what I have wrote I got from discusing politics in the dinner with my family (We fight a lot in the dinners lol) and we all use sources in spanish :/
Another reason to learn Spanish. Thanks for the info, comrade.