Thanks. I will also keep an eye on it.
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Haha. Iâm a South African of British, German and French descent with English first name and very rare French surname. No stirs were caused where I went.
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Du Toit??? 
I probably watch too much rugby.
I said RARE.
Nope. Iâm from the English-speaking side of the white population. du Toit is an Afrikaner surname from when the French Huguenots integrated into the Dutch colony in the 17th century.
Great-granddad arrived in the early 20th.
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JaJa, I caused a minor stir as my apellido (Okinawan), second name (Japanese) and name (Scottish) was on the first page of the book and the table was waiting to find out who is that odd named person.
Jaja. Poor bastards. I suppose they have to entertain themselves somehow.
I hope I never get tapped on the shoulder for that stuff. If I do I will just tell them I donât have enough Spanish to handle it.
Physically, still in Arica. Had a nice visit with him not long ago. Discussed the topic of the Croats in the far north. And the Long Dark Night of the Soul of Chile. Coming soon to a realization near you.
He had some observations on this matter of regional elections, via his blog.
In a recent post he revisited the habitual nature of This Country of Thieves, and reflected on the growing realization of the need for a better form of government, since the better form of culture and society here is regrettably out of the question. Bradanovic:
A propĂłsito asĂ funcionĂł el Gobierno Militar y durante los 17 años que durĂł transformĂł completamente al paĂs. No serĂa mala idea volver a eso.
(âIncidentally, this is how the military government functioned and during the 17 years it lasted it completely transformed the country. It would not be a bad idea to go back to that.â)
If your grasp of the vernacular is up to par, TomĂĄs may be our best guide to Chile.
Good company indeed 
From https://live.decidechile.cl/ these interesting statistics:
85% of the eligible voters participated
The remaining 15% didnât.
Of the 85% who actually showed up, 18% turned in Blank/Null ballot papers, so these electoral results are due to the votes of the remaining 67% of the electorate who (a) turned up, and (b) filled in the ballot papers correctly.
The number of blank/null votes increased significantly compared to the adjacent results for the 2023 Plebiscite
I had to edit this post as the previous results were only provisional, and were completely wrong!
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SegĂșn indica la ley, para las elecciones de este año, en caso de ser necesario, el domingo 24 de noviembre tendrĂĄ lugar la Segunda Vuelta de Gobernadores.
Al igual que en estas elecciones, para la segunda vuelta también habrå voto obligatorio
What shitty choices for Valpo, a commie vs. an establishment right commie lover.
Will be my first intentional spoiled ballot.
Malparido Malpo has been a lost cause for many years.
Meanwhile, in Santiago, the communist party mayor appears to have been beaten by the conservative (RN) candidate Mario Desbordes.
In Ăuñork (Ăuñoa) â a hotbed of leftist silliness, the new mayor looks like center-right candidate SebastiĂĄn Sichel, former president of Banco Estado.
Overall, significant moves against the Boric alliance, but not by any means an end to it. Centrist Chile Vamos with 122 municipalities versus 111 of the Boric coalition
Oi! I live there!
Then you know, po.
The runoff elections for Governor in the BioBio region includes Alejandro Navarro, a person who over the years has represented everything that is wrong with Chilean politics.
His borderline-treasonous support for the Maduro Venezuelan dictatorship is just the most recent feature of a political career that has been marked by corruption and opportunism.
Yet despite his reputation, heâs the candidate backed by sections of the oficialist block and garnered enough votes to have a chance at the governorship in the second round of voting. Is this dodgy has-been the best they could find?
And what does that say about the mentality of the BioBio electorate who voted for him?
Perhaps, as I believe, this overblown exercise in âdemocracyâ as seen in these recent local elections is quite unimportant in the bigger scheme of things. Mayors, Governors and the rest have little real power, which remains firmly centralized. So the results donât really matter that much, except for their propaganda value.
I try googling each candidate and looking at their facebook/instagram/twitter for 3 minutes per candidate. concejal was annoying, so many candidates, and so many desperately mediocre.
It is a bit of a stretch to call Orrego a commie and it really is getting tiresome this labelling of everyone as a communist who is a millimeter left of centre.
I just had a look through the results and is looks like the left, including those who are broadly aligned with Boric in ideology, did quite well in many cases, despite Boricâs unpopularity. It looks like the left could do OK in the next elections, including the Presidential, IF they can come up with a charamastic relatable candidate who isnât afraid to be tough on crime and illegal immigration. The left in Chile seem to finally, eventually realize that it was weak on crime and immigration and out of touch and has been shifting a bit towards the centre. Boric himself seemed to start it in the second round against Kast a long time back.
The centre right seems to be holding up alright.
The Republicanos donât seem to be growing much. Iâm not sure if there is a lack of votes for them necessarily, it could be more that they lack the resources and available talent to scale.
I am not quite sure what is going on with the centre left that used to the Bachelet-aligned parties. Are they dead, dying, rebranding, or still ticking along with some modest share of the vote? Not too sure. Maybe someone who is following it closely can explain it.
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Here is how some Chileans I know decided how to vote:
âI ask my friends who to vote forâ.
âjust vote nuloâ
âOne of the candidates sells fruit to me on his stall, and always has been nice to meâ
âShe is my neighbour so Iâll vote for, not sure which party or whether left or rightâ
When mi chinita ( a successful, mature businesswoman) disclosed why she voted the way she did in the last presidential election, I was reminded once again why this country has no hope.
Ditto. Oh shit, Iâm endorsing a PX post.
NOT.
This is a forum of free speech where I have yet to censor someone.
I agree with the response to the weak reasoning for voting for someone. The guy 4 houses down is a nice guy and has an almacen charging above supermarket prices (very capitalistic of him) and was running as a FA candidate for the forced second Constitucional Convencion. I did not vote for him just because I know him even though I received some less than legal lamb for Fiestas Patrias.
Lot of stupid people in this country and they have indeed received what they voted for cue to the famous video of the idiotic female joven saying Boric is the greatest and will change everything.