This Sunday, November 21, Chile will once again celebrate a festival of democracy. On this occasion, it will be nothing less than general elections: president and Congress, plus regional councilors. Elections of this kind are always important, but this time they are likely to be even more so, given the political, social, and health context we are facing. 

Perhaps out of habit, all eyes are mainly focused on what will happen with the presidential election. As we haven't seen in a long time, the first round will be extremely competitive and uncertain, according to the polls (which are highly criticized, but if anyone knows of a better tool, I invite them to share it). In order not to be biased by one or the other, we use the aggregate poll exercise carried out by Tres Quintos, which shows an almost tie for first place: Boric leads with almost 23% of the vote, followed by Kast with 22%. In third place is Provoste with 11%, while Sichel, with 8%, appears fourth, not far behind Parisi (7%). We have not seen this type of dispersion of votes before, which, added to the high percentage of undecided voters, means that the only certainty in the first-round results is that we are in for more than a few surprises. As Kenneth Bunker, given the same political, social, and health context mentioned above, it is not possible to make reasonable projections, not because the polls are bad (okay, some may be), but because, as he illustrates very well, when you take pictures of many moving objects, they tend to come out blurry.

Thus, in this election, very different candidates are facing off, some with similarities on social issues but polar opposites on economic issues, others completely alike in their diagnosis but with totally opposite solutions, and still others whose views we do not even know very well. To make matters worse, one of the candidates is not even in the country.

But perhaps even more important than the presidential election is the parliamentary election. Over the last two years, it has become clear that by forming circumstantial majorities for certain votes, it is possible to even override the Constitution and that, with enough votes, it is possible to co-govern the country. The current issues under discussion in Congress will not end with its current composition, and if certain initiatives currently underway continue, the forces in both chambers could change significantly, affecting whether or not certain initiatives are passed. Therefore, at least on our side, we will continue to follow the results in great detail, focusing not only on the political leanings of the candidates, but also on their statements on specific issues that concern us: pensions, taxes, fiscal spending, capital markets, etc.

Therefore, regardless of your preferences, it does matter. Informing yourself, using the new tools and channels available to learn about the candidates (even seeing if you "match" with any of them), and even the possibility of interacting with them on social media makes us more responsible for the process than ever before. No more blaming the system for who gets elected, what they legislate, or how they run the country. Because it does matter, let's go vote.

Nathan Pincheira 

Chief Economist at Fynsa