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Santiago, Chile – Maribel Mora Curriao, a Mapuche poet living in the Chilean capital, was pleased to vote on Sunday. “historical elections for the Mapuche people ”.
Curriao went to Frei, a small town in southern Chile, to vote and get closer to his roots.
“We are voting proudly and with identity for the first time. We have taken this process very seriously and we are very aware that it is a unique opportunity not only for us but also for the people of Chile, ”he told Al Jazeera.
“What happens from now on will not happen without the Mapuche community. It is now or never. “
Chileans began voting on Saturday for a two-day election for mayors, governors and city councilors across the South American nation.
Voters are also electing 155 delegates to form the Constitutional Convention, which is responsible for drafting a new constitution to replace the current one, which was written in the 1980s during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
“Everything is under control,” Andres Tagle, chairman of the Electoral Services Commission, said about the vote, and the results of it are expected to be released late Sunday night.
For the first time in Chilean history, ballot boxes were sealed and stored inside polling stations on Saturday night. Election officials guarded closed polling stations at 2,700 polling stations across the country, including schools and churches, and the Ministry of Defense sent more than 23,000 soldiers as additional security measures to protect them.
“If there is a fraud attempt, we will know,” Tagle said.
On Saturday, Chilean President Sebastian Piñera encouraged people to vote, saying “voting is an honor for democracy and our society.” He wrote this tweet: “Today the voice of the people must be heard in these historic elections.”
The delegates elected to accede to the Constitutional Convention will have a period of nine months, with an extension of three months, to draft the new constitution of Chile. It will be presented to voters in a plebiscite next year and voting will be mandatory.
Monica Manriquez, 83, was the first to vote at Luis Arrieta Cañas Elementary School in Peñalol County, Santiago. It was 8:30 a.m. local time and there were very few people around.
“I want to participate as much as I can in shaping the future of our country,” Manriquez told Al Jazeera. “Elections significantly define the fate of a nation.”
Participation was low for two days, especially in working-class neighborhoods. According to the Electoral Services Commission, 20% of Chile’s 14 million eligible voters on Saturday — about three million people — voted on Saturday.
Political analysts have said low turnout is partly due to a lack of information and the COVID-19 pandemic. Chile has reported 27,800 coronavirus-related deaths and more than 1.28 million cases so far.
If government officials have assured that people will vote in safe conditions amid the pandemic, the country’s health minister on Saturday urged citizens to “vote and go home”.
According to election experts, voter turnout should reach the same level as last October’s plebiscite, with 78% of Chileans voting in favor of rewriting the constitution. About 51 percent of Chileans participated in the process.
Historian and feminist Luna Follegati voted Sunday morning and stressed the importance of having a voice in writing a new constitution.
“Without feminism, there is no social transformation,” she told Al Jazeera.
“Today, our feminist demands must be included when it comes to writing a new constitution. If not, we will continue with a bad democracy, a political system that goes against women’s rights and freedom. The feminist movement has been clear in recent times: we will not return to silence. “
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