17/10/2024

The Southern Cone Heads to the Polls

In the year that 50.2% of the world’s population goes to the polls, October is a key month for the Southern Cone.

The municipal elections in Brazil, held on October 6th, revealed some interesting elements for analysis.

The impact of local agendas, the fragmented victories of the political center leaning more to the right, the second round in 15 regional capitals, and one question: is it possible to make projections for 2026?

The centrist Social Democratic Party (PSD) was the most voted in the first round, winning 887 mayoral races, including Rio de Janeiro, where the current mayor Eduardo Paes (supported by Lula) secured re-election in the first round with 60.26% of the vote, defeating Bolsonaro’s candidate, Alexandre Ramagem. In the city that gave rise to the former president, and where Carlos Bolsonaro was the most voted councilor, local solutions, particularly related to urban infrastructure, dominated the campaign agenda, reaffirming the current administration.

The strategy of center-right parties, which secured victories in regional capitals on a discourse leaning towards the political center, with the aim of blocking the polarization that defined the last presidential campaign, seems to have been successful in fragmenting the territorial political map.

A paradigmatic case is São Luís, the capital of Maranhão, where the PT and the PL supported the candidacy of Duarte Junior from the PSB, but lost to the PSD, whose mayoral candidate, Eduardo Salim Braide, won with 70% of the votes.

In the polarized race, neither Lula nor Bolsonaro achieved absolute victories. The PT won 248 mayoral races, while the PL secured 512, including two regional capitals, Maceió and Rio Branco. Lula's party will go to the second round in 4 capitals, while Bolsonaro's party will do so in 9. Both will face off directly in São Paulo, where, despite the polarization that cut the disruptive Pablo Marçal from the second round, current mayor Ricardo Nunes will compete against the popular PSOL deputy Guilherme Boulos.

A city where the public agenda is dominated by issues of security, public infrastructure, and housing emergencies will be the setting where Lula and Bolsonaro will try to show their political strength.

With São Paulo, 15 out of the 26 regional capitals will go to the second round on October 27. The Workers' Party and the Liberal Party, as political entities, will face off in only two regional capitals: Cuiabá and Fortaleza.

On the same day, the Southern Cone will have an important electoral day, as Uruguay will choose its next president, and regional elections will take place in Chile. These elections will affect the Latin American subregion, deciding whether the Frente Amplio regains the presidency in Uruguay and setting the tone for the balance of power between the Chilean left and right ahead of the 2025 presidential elections.

After the primaries held last June, the presidential candidates in Uruguay are Yamandú Orsi for the Frente Amplio, Álvaro Delgado for the ruling Partido Nacional, and Andrés Ojeda for the Partido Colorado. They appear in that order in various polls circulating in Uruguay. On the same day, congresspeople and senators for the next five-year term will also be chosen. Next year, in May, the regional elections will take place, held separately from the national elections to prioritize the local agenda.

With the recent approval of the Single Paper Ballot in Argentina, Uruguay is now the only country in the region that uses party-specific ballots.

The highest-rated democracy in the region, according to international organizations, still has an unresolved issue: the vote of Uruguayans living abroad, as voting can only be done within the national territory.

In the case of Chile, the election has two particularities: voting will take place over a period of two days, Saturday the 26th and Sunday the 25th, and it will be the first time in a regular election that voting will be mandatory since voluntary voting was introduced in 2012.

Chileans will elect governors and regional councils, as well as mayors and municipal councils. Drawing national conclusions from municipal elections is not productive, as shown recently in Brazil, but there is no doubt that Chilean political parties will closely monitor the regional results to inform their strategies, alliances, and candidates for next year's presidential elections.

President Gabriel Boric is currently facing two significant challenges in Congress: the pension reform and the healthcare system reform. Both issues were at the core of the social uprising and have yet to reach a consensus among political forces today. This situation occurs against a backdrop where the approval rating of the presidential image is below 30%, and where Vice President and Minister of the Interior Carolina Tohá is currently facing a motion for her dismissal in Congress. The opposition is blaming her for the ongoing security crisis in the country.

The situation is not much better for the opposition. The Chilean right is grappling with the crisis generated by the Hermosilla case, a corruption scandal that has affected several leaders of the Unión Democrata Independiente (UDI) and former officials of ex-President Piñera.

As candidates for the regional elections campaign in preparation for October 26 and 27, the dance of names for the 2025 presidential elections is already beginning. While José Antonio Kast announces his third and final run for the presidency with the Partido Republicano, the traditional right is empowering the mayor of Providencia, Evelyn Matthei of the UDI.

In the ruling party, while the question remains if Michelle Bachelet will run for a third term, and it becomes increasingly difficult for Carolina Tohá to avoid the wear and tear of the administration, fresh faces are emerging, such as Gonzalo Winter, a congressman from the Frente Amplio.

No doubt, on October 28, we will have much to analyze considering the electoral results.

We will know if Uruguay will have to wait for the runoff on November 24 to learn who will succeed Luis Lacalle Pou and how the balance of power will be structured in the legislative bodies.

If the regional results in Chile will influence the political challenges that Boric faces one year before the end of his term, and whether the alliances formed during this election will endure in the wake of the 2025 presidential elections.

If Guilherme Boulos will secure a victory for Lula in São Paulo just days before the important G20 event, which will bring together countries representing 85% of the world's gross domestic product, with an agenda that focusses on energy transition, fair and sustainable development (with an emphasis on combating hunger, poverty, and inequality), and reforming multilateral institutions.

Many unknowns, and undoubtedly many more questions than answers, will appear after the elections.

Dolores Gandulfo: Director of the Electoral Observatory of the Conferencia Permanente de América Latina y el Caribe (COPPPAL). Member of the Observatory of Political Reforms in Latin America. Director of the Diploma in Comparative Electoral Systems at the Universidad Nacional Tres de Febrero. Member of the Network of Political Scientists, the Association of International Relations Studies of Argentina (AERIA), and the Latin American Advisory Council of the Institute for Integrated Transitions (IFIT). Professor at the Universidad Nacional Scalabrini Ortiz, Universidad Nacional de General San Martín and the Universidad del Salvador (Argentina).