Vote

There is nothing new in my own blog, because I was busy writing about Chilean elections here.
Voting laws here are a strange thing (one I did not manage to get into the article):
- You have to register to vote, which is voluntary, but once you are registered, you must vote, and if not, you are being fined. If you can show that you live or work more than 300 km away from your supposed polling place, you might be able to avoid the fine (if your paco is buena onda). A lot of people don't register.
- There is the ley seca, the “dry law” which prohibits drinking or buying drinks as well as “reunions” the day before and on voting day. Which makes you think: Were they so drunk (considering the options offered) that this law was needed?
- You cannot vote if you live abroad and if you were abroad before, you have to have lived in Chile for something like three years again before you are cleared to vote! Guess who and when this law was invented? Correct! Sort of like NATO: keep the Communists out… These and worse strange laws were created under the Pinochet dictatorship.

As to the results – right-wing candidate Sebastian Piñera (Opus Dei, need I say more?) predictably won the first round, but a run-off election is needed and the results are open, as the split vote on the left could come together to avoid Piñera.