Karol Cariola

On August the 4th, 2013 Cariola emerged as the leading congressional candidate in the New Majority coalition's primary elections for the electoral district of Recoleta and Independencia. Subsequently, during the Chilean general election held on November 17, 2013 she won 38.47% of the votes and became the deputy-elect for the 19th electoral Santiago district of Recoleta and Independencia. She commenced to serve a four-year term in the Chilean Congress on 11 March 2014.

Cariola was elected General Secretary of the JJ.CC. amidst one of the most significant mass social mobilization in recent Chilean history – referred by the media as the Chilean Winter. This mobilization saw students across Chile refuse to return to school or university, from April 2011 to the end of the academic year, in protest and to demand an end to the privatization of education. Cariola has stated that the student mobilization, protests and strikes had a political nature and she refuted the statement made by the Chilean government spokesperson Andrés Chadwick that the CONFECH (Chile's Confederation of Student Unions) has been taken over by extremist elements.

The primary elections for the New Majority coalition commenced on August 4, 2013. These parliamentary primaries were set to determine which two candidates from the Nueva Mayoria pact in a given electorate will stand for the Chilean elections in November 2013. In the primary election for the 19th Santiago electorate of Recoleta-Independencia Cariola received the highest number of votes from the local constituents.

Karol Cariola is currently a candidate for the Chilean parliamentary elections to be held in 2013. This strategy to reach political power by Cariola and other members of the Communist Youth and ex-leaders of the educational social mobilizations such as Camila Vallejo and Camilo Ballesteros, has been bitterly questioned by some student factions who consider it a betrayal to the principles of the mobilizations. Other critics point to her explicit support for the governments of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez.

Karol Aída Cariola Oliva (born April 1, 1987) is a Chilean midwife, and former president of the Federación de Estudiantes de la Universidad de Concepción (University of Concepción Student Federation) for 2010. She was elected General Secretary of the Juventudes Comunistas de Chile, abbr. JJ.CC., (the youth wing of the Communist Party of Chile) at the organizations XIII Congress held in October 2011. Cariola is the second woman to hold this post in the Communist Youth of Chile after the late communist leader Gladys Marin (1941-2005).

Cariola has stated that "Chile and its people have to draft a new constitution" and has said that within the Nueva Mayoria coalition she intends to fight for a Constituent Assembly to oversee a change to the existing Chilean Constitution. Cariola - in line with the leader of the Nueva Mayoria, Michelle Bachelet - believes that the Chilean Constitution is illegitimate because it was introduced in the absence of political democracy by the Pinochet regime on September 11, 1980. Cariola also states that if she wins a seat in the Chilean Chamber of Deputies she will work to see a fair labour code implemented with an institution to protect workers' rights and the automatic unionization of all workers in or entering the workforce.