Frente Amplio (Broad Front)

The first round of Chile’s presidential election was held on November 19. The right-wing candidate, ex-president Sebastian Pinera, won with 36% of the votes. He will compete in the second round against centre-left candidate Alejandro Guiller.

But the big surprise was the result for the Broad Front (FA), a heterogeneous left coalition headed by Beatriz Sanchez. The FA candidate came in third, with 20% of the vote (just two points short of making the second round).

Since Chile’s return to democracy in 1990 after the fall of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, the South American nation has maintained a largely stable and predictable political system. However, the stability of this post-Pinochet political set up has seemingly come to an end.

A clear expression of this was the results of the presidential and parliamentary elections held on November 19.

Andres Garin died in Wollongong in December, aged 77. Andres was a founding member of Socialist Alliance as well as an activist with the Democratic Socialist Party and its predecessor, the Socialist Workers Party, for whom he ran as a senate candidate in the 1983 federal election. Andres was a comrade of great integrity and political conviction. He was always a fighter for justice and a better world against capitalist oppression and exploitation here in Australia and internationally, particularly in the struggles in the Caribbean and Latin America.