“Our campaign will have a participatory stamp”: Nicolás Hurtado

The candidate who recently won the last primary said that he hopes to achieve a change in the municipality of La Florida. He stressed that the right deployed itself with everything in the municipality and did not achieve a large turnout in these elections, so he sees a victory of the left in the municipality as possible. He indicated that his victory is the result of collective work. Regarding what is to come, he said that “we want to talk with all Floridians and coordinate in-depth work with social organizations.”

Daniela Pizarro Amaya. Journalist. “El Siglo”. Santiago. 12/6/2024Nicolás Hurtado Acuña is the new winner of the municipal primaries in the commune of La Florida, thus becoming the ruling party’s choice for the municipal seat of the “Contigo Chile Mejor” pact with 59.94% of the votes.

The Communist Party activist is a political scientist and has already served in the Municipality of La Florida as a councilor in the period 2016-2021. The current challenge is no minor one since he has to compete with the current mayor’s successor, Rodolfo Carter, and break with more than a decade of right-wing administration.

In an interview with ElSiglo.cl Hurtado spoke about what is coming in the campaign, the low participation in the primaries and his chances of winning the mayor’s office.

¿What significance do you give to this victory?

This victory is first of all a recognition of our career, as it is the result of sustained and permanent work over many years, beyond the personal, from the collective and especially from those who preceded us. Secondly, it is a responsibility that the citizens give us to represent the pact, which we take with humility and conviction of being able to do a good job for the residents of La Florida. The “Contigo Chile Mejor” pact offers a unitary project, programmatically compelling, which had an exemplary fraternal process during the development of the campaign, which allows us to offer governability and certainty in the management of the municipality.

¿How do you see the opponent on the right?

Unlike what happened in the right-wing primary, our campaign was centered on ideas, proposals, and not on disqualifications. The winning right-wing candidate deployed incalculable millionaire resources in his campaign, not only counting on the indiscriminate support of the current mayor, who put the municipality at his disposal, but they even began the campaign weeks before, violating the electoral law, with a campaign of terror, anti-communist discourse, and a large deployment of vans and buses for transport on election day. If one analyzes that they did everything, absolutely everything, and therefore mobilized all their loyal electorate and polarized the election, I think that the figures were not surprising and are perceived as completely achievable. The October election is a completely different scenario, with more than four months left until they are elected, they are compulsory voting and the result is open, which puts the responsibility for victory on us.

¿How do you view the low participation, what is it attributed to?

The low participation at the national level is worrying, and I believe it can be explained by at least two elements. First, there was a low level of coverage by Servel and the media, given that the process went almost unnoticed. While we traveled around the country, many people told us that they did not know what would happen. Second, because the primaries are very recent in our democratic history, there is still no awareness of taking ownership of this mechanism, which is still perceived as something only for the militants, and the importance of defining candidates is not recognized. This is obviously part of a deeper crisis in politics and parties at the national level, added to the apathy that has been generated at the local level by the last few years of a clientelist, populist, scarcely transparent administration without citizen participation.

¿What’s next in the mayoral campaign?

Now begins a time of planning, of articulating political forces, of developing a participatory process to build the final municipal program, of defining the candidates for councilors and regional advisors who will accompany the process and of territorial projection to be in each sector of the commune.

Our campaign will have a participatory, joyful and hopeful stamp that we will achieve change. We want to talk to all Floridians and coordinate in-depth work with social organizations. We are preparing to travel throughout the entire commune, reaching all the territories that need and deserve to be heard, taken into account, and incorporated into a different management.