The commune of El Carmen, located in the Province of Diguillín, will be the scene of an important democratic exercise this Sunday, when the citizen consultation – or unconventional primaries – will be held to define the sole candidate of the ruling party that will compete in the municipal elections in October.
This unprecedented process is the result of an agreement between the political parties and the candidates themselves, who managed to get the central level of their parties to support this initiative.
The race will be fought between Eduardo Riquelme (DC), Guillermo Feris (CS) and Marcelo Rubilar (PS), who will seek to win the favour of the residents of El Carmen. The elections will take place at the Elise Mottart School, where the voting tables will be located, which will open between 9:00 and 18:00 hours.
The electoral roll used will be the same as the last plebiscite in 2023, allowing the participation of all Carmelinos registered by December of that year. The election will be open, including independent citizens and activists, both from the ruling party and the opposition.
The calling parties drafted a regulation, which will govern the entire process.
The voice of the pre-candidates
Eduardo Riquelme Quintero, who is a public administrator and former municipal administrator of the commune, highlighted the importance of citizen consultation.
“It is the most democratic mechanism to define a single candidacy for October. This instance allows the residents to choose the best representative. I appreciate the efforts of the parties to create this instance and advance democracy for El Carmen,” he said.
Guillermo Feris Riquelme, a geographer and former head of Productive Development for the municipality, added that “the citizen consultation is a great opportunity to choose the candidate who best represents the ruling party. This mechanism promotes participation and ensures that the elected candidate represents the feelings of many Carmelinos, integrating diverse visions into a communal project.”
Meanwhile, Marcelo Rubilar Soto, with studies in the agricultural area and experience at the San Francisco Nursing Home, said he was “proud to lead this collective project, highlighting that the Carmelina community will set a democratic example today. Our focus will be on promoting access to rural drinking water, road connectivity and strengthening the social area,” he said.
Process details
The citizen consultation will have 10 voting tables, each with three members from the different parties and a general representative for each group. There will be 4,000 ballots available, estimating a participation of 30% of the 14,424 voters registered in the commune as of December 2023. The communal commission, made up of Elizabeth Umanzor, Andrés Lavanderos and Victoria Riquelme, will be in charge of the operational aspects to ensure that the consultation is participatory and transparent.
These unconventional primaries, according to their organizers, are an example of how the community can actively participate in the election of its representatives, strengthening democracy at the local level.
All Carmelites are invited to participate and make their voice heard today at the Elise Mottart School.
Carmel scenario
The commune of El Carmen has been a bastion of the DC in recent years, with the current mayor José San Martín.
As a result of the law limiting re-elections, he will not be able to run for a fourth consecutive term, so the race in October will be open.
Whoever wins today’s referendum will have to face at least two other candidates in October.
One of them will be the RN, Renán Cabezas, former regional minister of Government, who in 2021 was on the verge of beating San Martín, lacking only 250 votes.
The other candidate will be the representative of the Social Christian Party, the accountant Óscar Labraña.
The other primaries
On June 9, legal primaries were held in the municipalities of Coihueco and Portezuelo. 
They achieved between 10% and 30% participation respectively, despite it being a day of rain and strong winds, and in a context of disaffection with partisan politics.
In the Ñuble Region, only two municipalities held the mayoral primary process. At the national level, there were 60 localities and two regions where Chile Vamos elected its candidates for governor.
Coihueco and Portezuelo were the territories chosen by Chile Vamos – the only conglomerate that used the mechanism at the local level – to define a single letter to represent them on October 27.
In the commune of Punilla, where Carlos Chandía (RN) is leaving office, the municipal administrator, Russel Cabrera, was unable to take over, although he nevertheless obtained a very good vote as an independent-RN.
The former two-term UDI councillor, Juan Muñoz Quezada, will represent the bloc in October, following having obtained 1,522 votes, that is, 53%, compared to Cabrera’s 47%.
In total, 2,914 people voted at the 25 polling stations in the commune, 12.3% of the electoral roll.
In Portezuelo, meanwhile, there was a record turnout, with 1,891 voters out of a total of 5,881. That is, 33.7% of the registered voters went to the polls, something unusual in this type of election.
The person representing Chile Vamos in October in the dryland commune will be the current municipal administrator, Adán Zapata Figueroa (RN), who obtained 972 votes, obtaining 51.8% of the vote, compared to 48.2% for his opponent, the current UDI councilor, Alan Ibáñez.
Mechanism
According to the Secretary of Public Administration Studies at USS, Margarita Riquelme, “primaries were presented as an option to legitimize candidates, which were previously chosen by hand and only represented the will of political parties.”
In light of this, he said, “the primary model has ample room for improvement in its effectiveness, however, and if we look at the past, having them is much better than accepting the nominations offered by political parties.”
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