The Race is On!

May 16th is it for political parties. On that Sunday everyone (or 60% of everyone) will head to the polls here to cast their vote for the next diputado and síndico. Let me tell you, they do not do politics the same way here as in the States...

First thing is that not everyone can read, so posting billboards and handing out flyers outlining each candidates' platform ain't gonna work. Instead what they rely on is colors, because everyone (more or less...) can distinguish those. So all the candidates make sure to prominently display their party's political colors wherever they go. Red, purple, white, blue. And there may be a green out there.

The most common and popular self-promotion technique: face signs. These are literally just ENORMOUS pictures of the candidates face. Their tactic for getting someone's vote consists in draping a sign of their smiling face over the side of an entire building. With their party's color as the background of course. It's kind of creepy really. Walking down the street and seeing all of these Godzilla size people staring down at you, smiling eerily and reminding you to vote! :D

The current man in charge is Jose Enrique Sued, and now that elections are coming up there's a whole bunch of (inconvenient) construction projects going on as he tries to make it look like he's actually been doing his job for the past 6 years and improving Santiago. So imagine 6 years of work crammed into the course of 6 months...trying to make up for lost time?? He's always asking for your "pardon" as you try to figure out how to walk around wet cement without also walking into oncoming traffic. Helping to make Santiago more beautiful or less pedestrian friendly? There's the real question!

My favorite part of all though is by far the parades. Oh the parades! Every weekend on Saturdays and Sundays each political party will have parades in the cities to promote their candidates. However, their version of a "parade" is a big long traffic jam of people wearing the same color. And making sure every car is blasting reggaeton or merengue as loud as their stereo system will let them. That is it. There is no discussion of platforms, no chanting of any slogans. Just music and colors. Sometimes people just join onto the parade because there is a chance that their palms will be greased with some dinero if they shake hands with an important person in the party while cheering their hearts out.

And to continue the celebrations throughout the week they just have trucks drive around and blare music from the extra extra large speakers in the truck bed that are covered with (you guessed it!) a big face poster.

Only one more week left of pure ridiculousness...