The openMovements series invites leading social scientists to share their research results and perspectives on contemporary social struggles.
Chilean presidential candidate Beatriz Sanchez shows her ballot at a polling station during the presidential election in Santiago, capital of Chile, on Nov. 19, 2017. Cristobal Escobar/Press Association. All rights reserved.The recent results from the presidential elections in Chile, although surprising, confirm a trend that has been emerging since the election that guided the socialist Michelle Bachelet to her second term (2014-2018): the emergence of a new and open political cycle, made possible by the mobilization created by the student movement of 2011.
The “Chilean Winter” of that year continues to reverberate in the political system of the Andean country. This is shown, among other aspects, by the significant vote for the presidential candidacy of the Frente Amplio (FA), a political front founded less than a year ago, which unites a large number of leftist groups and is articulated around the figures of some of the remarkable student leaders of the previously mentioned cycle of mobilization. The vote for Beatriz Sánchez, the presidential standard-bearer of the FA, reached approximately 20% of the vote, falling short of her competitor, the candidate of the ruling center-left, Alejandro Guiller, by only 2.5 percentage points. Guiller ended up participating in (and probably winning) the second round of voting against the conservative mega-businessman, Sebastián Piñera.
