Chile’s presidential election is still 14 months away. But it is striking that the early front-runners in the opinion polls are the mayors of three districts of Santiago, the capital: Joaquín Lavín, a mildly populist conservative; Evelyn Matthei, a more orthodox one; and Daniel Jadue, a communist. Their prominence is a sign that in Chile, where disillusion with the political class was behind a huge wave of protests a year ago, mayors are less discredited than parliamentarians or ministers.
With the exception of Brazil, long a genuinely federal country, Latin American government has been highly centralised. According to a database prepared by the oecd, an intergovernmental research group, spending by subnational governments in Latin America is equal to only 6% of gdp, compared with almost 10% in the Asia-Pacific region and 12% in Europe and North America. Mayors and governors are responsible for 18% of total government spending in Latin America, compared with more than 35% in the Asia-Pacific. Local governments in Latin America raise little of their own revenue, which means mayors are not fully accountable for the money they spend.
