translated from Spanish: Binding and broad primaries… but without them

This weekend the primaries of two political pacts will be held: Vamos Chile and A aprueba Dignidad, this time the nuances of each of the political coalitions are confronted with their six male candidates.
In this context, what is decided is who will lead the coalitions in the next presidential election in November. The candidates have deployed their territorial, communicational and political capacity through various mechanisms, among which we can mention: territorial tours of the country, electoral strip, participation in radio, television and virtual programs, debates and social networks. This deployment seeks citizen support for their candidacies and with greater importance now, in that they participate in the primary, for fear of a low turnout that would result in a weakness of the candidate who is elected. The strategic challenge, therefore, is participation.
And precisely, in this perspective of achieving mass in the process, this primary establishes a significant deficit in terms of its composition and symbolism, of this new Chile that is born. This problem is the absence of women candidates, which speaks and proves precisely the adversities that women have on many levels and particularly in politics. The signals have been clear and resounding, a joint convention, a president of this body, the search for parity as an essential requirement for the proper functioning of the institutions. Despite this, six male candidates, coalitions and parties did not read and interpret what the citizenry demands and this may affect the participation of the citizen for this weekend.
Rafael Pizarro
Academician of Public Administration of UTEM

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Original source in Spanish