SANTIAGO — Chileans are preparing to vote in the presidential elections in November, and the country is already deep in campaign mode. Across Chile’s cities, the streets are filling with posters of the candidates: José Antonio Kast for the far right, Evelyn Matthei for the traditional right, and legendary Italian popstar Raffaella Carrà, who passed away in 2021, for the Communist Party. That’s right.
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The campaign posters for Jeannette Jara, 51, who is the candidate for Chile’s ruling left-wing coalition, are among the most unexpected to appear in the country’s recent electoral history: Rather than show the prominent figure of the Chilean left, the posters feature the celebrated icon of Italian music and television.
For weeks now, large red posters have lined the streets of Santiago during campaign events, showing a young Carrà with the slogan: “Siempre voto comunista.” Beneath that, in Italian: “Raffaella Carrà — hammer and sickle — one of us.”
A cultural icon
The origin of these posters is quite specific: after Jara won the left’s June 29 primary election — defeating Carolina Tohá of the PPD, Gonzalo Winter from the Frente Amplio, and Jaime Mulet of the Federación Regionalista Verde Social — with over 60% of the vote, Libre Arte y Diseño, a long-established stationery shop in downtown Santiago, began producing the posters.
Carrà holds a firm place in the communist imagination, especially in Latin America, where her songs, translated and reinterpreted, have become a staple of cultural life. So it’s no surprise that César Padilla, 57, the shop’s owner, chose Carrà as his icon.
“Right after Jara’s primary win,” Padilla said, “there was a sense that she wanted to distance herself from the Communist Party to make herself more appealing to the moderate left. What we wanted to say with this poster was: being a communist isn’t something to be ashamed of. Look at Raffaella: She never hid it, she wore it with pride! And the message got through.” Padilla highlights Carrà’s significance in Chilean culture, “not just as an artist, but as a symbol of open, inclusive politics.”
During Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship, Carrà became a symbol of resistance
In Chile, the Italian singer has long been a progressive icon, not least because of her outspoken support for the LGBTQIA+ community. During Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship, Carrà became a symbol of resistance, culminating in her legendary appearance at the Viña del Mar Festival, where she danced with wild abandon, defying both convention and censorship.
Carrà was a committed supporter of the Italian Communist Party, as she stated in a 1977 interview with the Spanish magazine Interviú. The phrase “Siempre voto comunista” is taken directly from the headline of that interview, and today serves as a slogan for Jara’s campaign.
A grassroots campaign
The Libre Arte y Diseño shop has become a key player in Chile’s grassroots political campaigns. “In the past five years, we’ve handed out more than 120,000 posters,” Padilla said. The shop began producing them in 2021, during the presidential race that saw Gabriel Boric defeat Kast, who is now running again.
Jara currently enjoys a 26% lead in the polls, but the outcome will not be decided until the second round on Nov. 16. Jara was the first Labor minister in Chile’s post-Pinochet democracy, appointed by Boric himself, and since beginning her political career in the Juventudes Comunistas in 1989, she has become the face of the Chilean Communist Party.
Two years ago, Carrà’s legacy had already found its way into politics, this time in Spain. On July 23, the right-wing Popular Party, led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo, won the most votes but failed to form a government, falling short of an absolute majority. His Socialist rival, current Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, outperformed all poll expectations.
To celebrate, Socialist ministers and activists took to the streets, dancing to Carrà’s 1980 hit “Pedro.” The song had already become the unofficial anthem of the Socialist campaign at their Madrid headquarters in 2023. The choice was more than symbolic, playing on the coincidence between Carrà’s lover Pedro and the outgoing prime minister, who would go on to win re-election.
