2024 Contigo Chile Mejor mayoral primaries

The 2024 Contigo Chile Mejor mayoral primaries were held on June 9, 2024, to select the candidates of the center-left electoral alliance Contigo Chile Mejor for mayor in 45 Chilean communes. The winners were to appear on the ballot in the municipal elections of October 26–27, 2024. The alliance brought together the parties of President Gabriel Boric's governing coalition and the Christian Democratic Party. It fielded 152 candidates, of whom 45 were nominated.

Voting was voluntary and open to members of the participating parties and to independents. Turnout was low, at roughly 6 percent of eligible voters across all the primaries held that day. Candidates registered as independents, many of them endorsed by parties, received the most votes (24.4 percent), followed by the Socialist Party of Chile (20.1 percent) and the Christian Democratic Party (13.6 percent). The Socialists won the most nominations, with 10. Nominees included Camila Nieto in Valparaíso, Miguel Concha in Peñalolén and Nicolás Hurtado in La Florida. The results were disrupted in Paredones, where the winner turned out to have been barred from holding public office and his party withdrew his candidacy.

Background

Rules

Chilean law defines primaries as a mechanism for parties to nominate candidates, and the results are binding on the participating parties. Voting is mandatory in Chilean elections generally, but Law 21.524 exempts primaries. Each party or alliance chooses who may vote in its primary. For the 2024 primaries, members of the participating parties and independents could vote, but each person could vote in only one primary.

According to the head of the Electoral Service (Servel), members of parties that were not holding primaries could not participate. Where more than one alliance held a primary in the same commune, independents received a ballot listing the candidates of both and could vote for only one. Members of the participating parties received a ballot listing only the candidates of their own side. The ballots for the Contigo Chile Mejor primaries were light blue.

The alliance and its candidacies

The Contigo Chile Mejor alliance was registered in early April 2024. It comprised the parties of the governing coalition plus the Christian Democrats, and it announced the communes where it would hold primaries. The alliance initially said it had agreed to hold primaries in 86 communes. When Servel's deadline for registering primaries closed on the night of April 10, the official filings showed only 47. Servel published the accepted candidacies. In the end, the alliance's primaries were reported in 45 communes across 12 of Chile's 16 regions, with 152 candidates in total. Valparaíso, Antofagasta, Talca and Calera de Tango each had six candidates. The alliance held no primaries for regional governor.

The Contigo Chile Mejor primaries took place alongside those of the opposition Chile Vamos alliance, which held contests in 20 communes and in two regions for governor, and those of the Social Christian Party. In total, 60 communes held mayoral primaries.

Campaign

The campaign period for the primaries ran from May 10 to June 6, 2024.

Results

Overall

Candidates are listed under the party with which they registered. Those registered as independents include many who were endorsed by parties of the alliance.

Despite holding primaries in more than twice as many communes as Chile Vamos, Contigo Chile Mejor received roughly 168,000 votes to the opposition alliance's roughly 110,600. Participation across all the primaries was about 6 percent of eligible voters. The Clinic reported that this was the most votes cast in primaries of this kind since legal primaries were introduced in 2012. By the Socialist Party's count of nominees, it led the alliance with 10. The Party for Democracy followed with 7, the Communist Party with 5, and Social Convergence and the Christian Democrats with 3 each. The Radical Party and the Regionalist Green Social Federation had 2 each, and Comunes and Democratic Revolution had 1 each. Eleven independents were also nominated.

Notable contests

• Valparaíso: Camila Nieto of Social Convergence, a sitting city councilor, won a six-candidate contest with 37.1 percent. She finished ahead of Christian Democrat Guillermo de la Maza, who took 28.3 percent.
• Peñalolén: Miguel Concha of Democratic Revolution won with 51.8 percent. The commune had been governed by the Christian Democrats for the previous 20 years, and the result left the party without a candidate in the general election.
• Providencia: Macarena Fernández of Social Convergence defeated Socialist María Fernanda Villegas by 44 votes, 1,504 to 1,460.
• La Florida and Puente Alto: Two of the three communes with the highest turnout were La Florida and Puente Alto. The third was Lo Barnechea. In La Florida, the Communist Party's Nicolás Hurtado, a city councilor who had worked with government spokesperson Camila Vallejo, won the alliance's primary. The Chile Vamos primary in the same commune drew about 19,900 votes, against about 10,900 for the Contigo Chile Mejor primary. In Puente Alto, Socialist Luis Escanilla won the alliance's primary with 68.98 percent.
• Paredones: See below.

Results by commune

Nominees are shaded. Party abbreviations: PDC = Christian Democratic Party; PS = Socialist Party of Chile; PCCh = Communist Party of Chile; PPD = Party for Democracy; PR = Radical Party of Chile; CS = Social Convergence; RD = Democratic Revolution; FREVS = Regionalist Green Social Federation; PL = Liberal Party of Chile; COM = Comunes; AH = Humanist Action; Ind. = independent.

Antofagasta Region

Antofagasta

Atacama Region

Tierra Amarilla

Coquimbo Region

Combarbalá

La Higuera

La Serena

Valparaíso Region

Cartagena

Nogales

Puchuncaví

Valparaíso

Santiago Metropolitan Region

Buin

Calera de Tango

Isla de Maipo

La Florida

La Granja

Lo Barnechea

Paine

Peñalolén

Providencia

Puente Alto

O'Higgins Region

Nancagua

Olivar

Paredones

Rancagua

San Fernando

Santa Cruz

Maule Region

Curepto

Linares

Talca

Biobío Region

Lebu

Lota

Penco

San Pedro de la Paz

Talcahuano

Araucanía Region

Carahue

Curacautín

Lautaro

Pitrufquén

Pucón

Saavedra

Los Ríos Region

Futrono

Mariquina

Paillaco

Panguipulli

Los Lagos Region

San Pablo

Magallanes Region

Punta Arenas

Aftermath

Paredones disqualification

In Paredones, Sammy Ormazábal of the Party for Democracy, a former mayor and councilor, won the alliance's primary with 69.6 percent of the vote. Reports soon emerged that the electoral courts had barred him from holding public office for five years in a case related to administrative probity. According to one account, the case concerned the alleged granting of an alcohol license to a relative without consulting the municipal council. Reports differed on the timing. Emol reported that a ruling of the Election Certification Tribunal dated June 6, three days before the primary, barred him from office. Meganoticias reported that the tribunal's decision dated from May and that the regional electoral court notified Servel on June 6.

Servel's regional director for O'Higgins said the agency had received no resolution from any electoral court suspending the primary or voiding the candidacy. He said Servel had accepted the candidacy because it met the legal requirements when it was filed, and that Servel had no legal power to suspend a primary. The Party for Democracy's secretary-general, José Toro Kemp, said the party would withdraw Ormazábal's candidacy. He said the court ruling came after the candidates were registered, when nothing could be done, and that the party would discuss which party should hold the slot in Paredones. Meganoticias noted that, under Article 35 of the primaries law, a primary cannot be repeated.

October municipal elections

Several of the alliance's nominees went on to compete in the municipal elections of October 26–27, 2024. Camila Nieto won the mayoralty of Valparaíso. Miguel Concha was elected in Peñalolén. In La Florida, Daniel Reyes, who had won the Chile Vamos primary, was elected over the alliance's nominee, Nicolás Hurtado. In Puente Alto, Matías Toledo was elected, rather than Luis Escanilla. In Buin, Miguel Araya won rather than Marcelo Álvarez, and in La Granja Claudio Arriagada won rather than Edita Alarcón.

Nationally, preliminary results showed the governing left-wing parties losing the mayoralties of Santiago and Ñuñoa. They also lost between 30 and 40 of the 345 municipalities that voted, a setback that was smaller than some forecasts had predicted.