The Chilean Elections of December 2009 and January 2010

Abstract

On 13 December 2009, seven million Chileans went to the polls to elect the president who would run their country from 2010 to 2014, as well as lower chamber representatives of the country’s sixty electoral districts. The congressional election was characterized by continuity, with the center-left Concertación (CPD) and the centerright Alianza Por Chile (APC) confirmed as the two dominant congressional blocs. At the party level, the rightist Unión Demócrata Independiente (UDI) continued as the largest single party in electoral terms, while the Partido Demócrata Cristiano (PDC) continued its gradual but steady decline. The only novelty at the congressional level was the election of three congressional representatives from the Partido Comunista (PC), enabled by a pragmatic pact with the CPD to end its exclusion from the chamber. In terms of voter turnout and citizenship’s participation in elections, this electoral cycle was also characterized by continuity, with turnout reaching 84% of registered voters (close to the average for post-1990 elections), but with the percentage of the eligible population registered to vote dropping to an all-time low of 68%.