La Presidenta
The second round of the Chilean election was today, and Michelle Bachelet won definitively (53.5%). Yay! So now all the punditry about Chile electing an agnostic, divorced women can continue with my blessing, cause it happened :-).
You know, when I first starting writing this post I was feeling very blah about the whole thing. It seemed anticlimactic and I couldn't think of much to say. I originally titled this post "La Segunda Vuelta" (The Second Round) because that's all I could think of--it is the second round and thus it decides the president, and the period leading up to the election definitely felt "secondary" to the atmosphere of the December election. There are several reasons for this detachment. First, the second round campaign period was really only 2 weeks long (starting after New Years) and we were out of town for the first week. Second, there was much less physical evidence of an election around town, since there were only 2 presidential candidates and the Congressional elections have been decided, so there were only a tiny fraction of the campaign posters and flyers posted around the city. Third, since we live in one of the only 5 (our of 30ish) comunas (like NYC boroughs) in Santiago in which the majority voted for Pinera, at first it didn't *feel* like anything special had happened--all the action was in the centro.
But then I watched more TV coverage, and especially Bachelet's acceptance speech. It was inspiring. To see her speak so eloquently about her victory, about her family (in particular her father, who was persecuted and eventually died in military custody during Pinochet), about her plans for the next 4 years (yeah yeah, I know these speeches always set lofty goals), and even more impressive to see the sea of people out in the streets celebrating... it was impresionante. It's pretty freaking cool that Chile has a female president, and it's cool to be here to see it happen. We thought about going downtown to experience the celebration, but we decided not to for several reasons, one of which being that I would feel silly being there and not being totally celebratory, jumping up and down and dancing, etc. We went to Bachelet's closing rally on Thursday and although it was cool to see, even there I felt a little disingenuous not being as emotional as the rest of the crowd. So obviously we would be very out of place at the victory party! But luckily, even though we are in a relatively conservative neighborhood, it turns out that people are celebrating around us--honking horns in the streets, and at least a few of our neighbors seem to be to having celebratory drinks on their balconies.
So, there it is. I can't think of a snappy closing so instead I'll just post some words:
triunfo=triumph/political win
respaldo=backing (i.e. like support)
conciudadano=compatriot/"fellow citizen"
You know, when I first starting writing this post I was feeling very blah about the whole thing. It seemed anticlimactic and I couldn't think of much to say. I originally titled this post "La Segunda Vuelta" (The Second Round) because that's all I could think of--it is the second round and thus it decides the president, and the period leading up to the election definitely felt "secondary" to the atmosphere of the December election. There are several reasons for this detachment. First, the second round campaign period was really only 2 weeks long (starting after New Years) and we were out of town for the first week. Second, there was much less physical evidence of an election around town, since there were only 2 presidential candidates and the Congressional elections have been decided, so there were only a tiny fraction of the campaign posters and flyers posted around the city. Third, since we live in one of the only 5 (our of 30ish) comunas (like NYC boroughs) in Santiago in which the majority voted for Pinera, at first it didn't *feel* like anything special had happened--all the action was in the centro.
But then I watched more TV coverage, and especially Bachelet's acceptance speech. It was inspiring. To see her speak so eloquently about her victory, about her family (in particular her father, who was persecuted and eventually died in military custody during Pinochet), about her plans for the next 4 years (yeah yeah, I know these speeches always set lofty goals), and even more impressive to see the sea of people out in the streets celebrating... it was impresionante. It's pretty freaking cool that Chile has a female president, and it's cool to be here to see it happen. We thought about going downtown to experience the celebration, but we decided not to for several reasons, one of which being that I would feel silly being there and not being totally celebratory, jumping up and down and dancing, etc. We went to Bachelet's closing rally on Thursday and although it was cool to see, even there I felt a little disingenuous not being as emotional as the rest of the crowd. So obviously we would be very out of place at the victory party! But luckily, even though we are in a relatively conservative neighborhood, it turns out that people are celebrating around us--honking horns in the streets, and at least a few of our neighbors seem to be to having celebratory drinks on their balconies.
So, there it is. I can't think of a snappy closing so instead I'll just post some words:
triunfo=triumph/political win
respaldo=backing (i.e. like support)
conciudadano=compatriot/"fellow citizen"
posted by HelenO at
3:37 PM
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