The Study Data Influences of the consulting firm Tú Influences revealed the position that citizens have on contingent issues at the national level, such as the citizen consultation of The Constituent Unit, the fourth withdrawal of pension funds and the work of the Constitutional Convention a month after its installation.
Regarding the Constituent Unity consultation, in which Yasna Provoste (DC), Carlos Maldonado (PR) and Paula Narvaez (PS) will compete to define the center-left presidential standard-bearer, 38% of the respondents said that they will not vote in this process, and only 15% said they will participate.
In this regard, the director of Tú Influences, Axel Callís said that “an electoral failure in terms of competition is less than 1 million, and a failure in terms of convocation is less than 600 thousand (people). If you get less than a million, you’re not being competitive because the other candidates already have more than a million.”
However, he qualified by pointing out that “since this is artisanal (…) from the point of view of the organization and what is Constituent Unity, with 600 thousand I think it would be something quite worthy for the state of the situation of the pact”.
Fourth AFP withdrawal
The Data Influences survey also revealed that 68% of people would make a fourth withdrawal of 10% of pension funds, even given the possibility of being “zero” in their individual accounts. The bill will begin to be discussed in the coming days in Congress.
Regarding the upcoming debate, Callis said that “the 10 percent withdrawals at election time are pure fuel for parliamentarians who need support, and after the experience of Pamela Jiles, everyone feels that climbing into a retirement will grow in the polls.”
He added that “between electoral necessity, fourth withdrawal, and an IFE that does not extend until December, it could be deadly for the government.”
He also considered that the fourth withdrawal “is a negotiating weapon for the extension of the IFE, therefore I believe that there will be a negotiation that will be anchored in Parliament, I believe that they will ask for the increase of the IFE, or a focus associated with what is the issue of the labor indicator of employment stability , try to embellish it a little so as to pressure the government to put its hand in its pocket for the fourth retreat. Up to the minute I think it’s a pressure weapon.”
Constitutional Convention
The results of the survey also showed a high level of interest on the part of the citizens in the Constitutional Convention. Specifically, 84% of the respondents said they were interested or very interested in the development of this body, and only 16% said they were disinterested or very disinterested.
But despite the high interest generated among citizens by the Constitutional Convention, 55% consider its performance to be low or well below their expectations.
About these results, Axel Callís maintained that “it also has to do with what people thought that constitutional convention was going to be. I believe that a large majority of Chileans thought that the Convention was going to come together and they were going to start drafting the Constitution immediately, and they did not know that a series of administrative procedures had to be done that would allow them to start drafting the Constitution.”
In that sense, he considered that “expectations are moderate, in fact the people who have a lot of confidence are almost half.”
Presidential preferences
In the section on political tendencies and government, and thinking about the presidential elections that will be held at the end of 2021, 29.5% of the respondents said they would vote for Gabriel Boric (Frente Amplio), 19.9% for Sebastián Sichel (independent for Chile Vamos) and 13.7% for Yasna Provoste (pre-candidate of the DC), well above her competitors of Unidad Constituyente , Paula Narváez (4.6%) and Carlos Maldonado (2.4%).
However, Axel Callis does not believe that the citizen consultation is a “run race” for Yasna Provoste: “The race (for Yasna Provoste) is in a scheme where many people participate -over 300 or 400 thousand people-, because if only militants participate, maybe someone else wins, and the Christian Democracy is competing against 4 parties. If only militants vote, it can be much narrower, but if more people vote, obviously Yasna Provoste has a pretty high chance of winning.”
