Spanish
Santiago de Chile, June 29 (EFE).- The three candidates who competed this Sunday in the presidential primaries of the Chilean left congratulated the winner, former Minister of Labor, Jeannette Jara, and confirmed their full support for the elections scheduled for next November.
Jara swept in a consultation marked by low participation - less than one and a half million voters - with more than 60% of the votes, ahead of her former Cabinet colleague and former Interior Minister, Carolina Toha, candidate of socialism with about 27%, the deputy Gonzalo Winter, of the Frente Amplio, the coalition formed by Boric, with 8% and Jaime Mulet, deputy of the small Green Regionalist Social Federation (FRVS) with 2.3%.
The first to congratulate the winner was Winter himself, a personal friend of the leader, who immediately made himself available to his rival for whatever she considers.
"It will have the full support of the Broad Front Party, its mayors, councilors, grassroots leaders, social leaders, and this congressman, former candidate, in the role that best suits his candidacy," said the congressman.
"It will count on this party that will put its enthusiasm, its joy and that will put itself at your disposal with all the strength we can" before insisting that after the primaries what there is now is "a united coalition, a coalition that was not united four years ago in the primaries of last year and that, through the leadership of President Boric, we have managed to give the country a united Progressivism that grants governability under the figure of our new leader Jeannette Jara", he affirmed.
"The most political analyses will come tomorrow, we are just getting to know the results," he replied to those who asked him if the defeat is a blow to the president himself.
He also admitted that, although the context is not the same, "obviously the results are very far from what we would like, but today what I want to state is that there is a Progressivism that is united."
In the same vein of unity, although visibly more affected by such a resounding defeat, which was not expected in the polls, Toha congratulated his colleague before focusing on the November election.
"The country has known the results of the primary. For us, they are sad, disappointing results, not what we expected. I called Jeannette Jara a few minutes ago, I congratulated her on her result," he affirmed.
"It's a very strong result and now is the time to reaffirm what we have often said, that we are committed to a pact that we will obviously fulfill, not only in form, but in substance. She becomes the candidate of the center-left and we will work loyally so that this candidacy offers the country the best possible project to compete with the right," he argued.
Tohá expressed concern about the low participation in a primary process that has barely sparked enthusiasm and that the right has avoided.
"As part of that challenge, it is certainly also raised that we need to take charge of the fact that for some reason not all the people we would have liked attended this vote. That is a task that remains for the future of how we can make the democratic socialism that I represented in this election get closer to the citizenry, can once again be a convener, as an aspiration for the future," he expressed.
"What we said is that we wanted to win this primary. Obviously, we defended our option, but here it is the citizens who chose and we respect the citizen verdict. That is, we said that we wanted to have won, but we lost. So we accept that defeat and what corresponds is to work together," concluded Carolina Toha.
Mulet, for his part, could not make the expected statements before Jara's public appearance, since his return flight to Santiago de Chile from the northern city of Copiapó, where he voted, was delayed.
