Chile's Aysén Region polled about switching from -04/-03 to -03 all year
Beginning this week and continuing through the end of the month, the citizens of Chile's Aysén Region are being polled virtually for a non-binding resolution[1] to switch from the their current timekeeping regime TZ="America/Santiago" (-04 in winter, -03 in summer) to permanent -03 (like TZ="America/Punta_Arenas"). If this happens, we'll need to create a new Zone America/Coyhaique to record the change, which would likely have practical effect on 2025-04-05 at the earliest. Unfortunately, the SurveyMonkey form used for the poll requires no authentication, which raised plausible worries this week about ballot-stuffing[2]. [1]: https://www.diarioregionalaysen.cl/noticia/actualidad/2024/11/lanzan-consult... [2]: https://www.diarioregionalaysen.cl/noticia/actualidad/2024/11/encuesta-sobre...
Diario Regional Aysén's Sebastián Martel reports[1] that 94% of Aysén citizens polled in November favored changing the rules from -04/-03-with-DST to -03 all year, and that the wheels have been set in motion to do it. I guess this would affect clocks starting April 5, when Aysén is currently scheduled to fall back from -03 to -04. Any change requires further action by authorities in Santiago, so the change might not happen or might happen at some other date, and I have not drafted a proposed change to TZDB. As we need to put out a new TZDB release soon for Paraguay, it looks like any Aysén change would have to wait for the release after that. [1]: https://www.diarioregionalaysen.cl/noticia/actualidad/2024/12/presentan-deci...
Radio Santa María (Coyhaique) reported Wednesday (in Spanish)[1] of a delay in the decision whether Chile’s Aysén Region will switch from -04/-03 (with DST) to all-year -03. A government representative denied that the delay is due to Interior Minister Carolina Tohá’s resignation Tuesday to run for president, and Tohá’s replacement that day by Álvaro Elizalde. If the Interior Ministry decides to go ahead with the change, this would invalidate current TZDB for Aysén at some future point. A plausible time for this would be April 5 at 24:00, which is short notice for people responsible for operating systems in the region. Perhaps someone with connections in Chile could suggest making any change in April 2026 rather than this year. The attached hypothetical patch shows one way that this might play out in four weeks. I have not installed this patch into the TZDB development repository, though, as the situation is too iffy. [1]: https://www.radiosantamaria.cl/2025/03/05/regional-huso-horario-anunciaran-e...
Hi Paul, today we have more confirmation of the change. Aysen region will keep UTC-3 all year https://www.cnnchile.com/pais/region-de-aysen-mantendra-horario-de-verano-to... https://www.latercera.com/nacional/noticia/tras-consulta-ciudadana-region-de... https://x.com/min_interior/status/1902692504270672098 kind regards On Sat, Mar 8, 2025 at 11:55 PM Paul Eggert via tz <tz@iana.org> wrote:
Radio Santa María (Coyhaique) reported Wednesday (in Spanish)[1] of a delay in the decision whether Chile’s Aysén Region will switch from -04/-03 (with DST) to all-year -03. A government representative denied that the delay is due to Interior Minister Carolina Tohá’s resignation Tuesday to run for president, and Tohá’s replacement that day by Álvaro Elizalde.
If the Interior Ministry decides to go ahead with the change, this would invalidate current TZDB for Aysén at some future point. A plausible time for this would be April 5 at 24:00, which is short notice for people responsible for operating systems in the region. Perhaps someone with connections in Chile could suggest making any change in April 2026 rather than this year.
The attached hypothetical patch shows one way that this might play out in four weeks. I have not installed this patch into the TZDB development repository, though, as the situation is too iffy.
[1]:
https://www.radiosantamaria.cl/2025/03/05/regional-huso-horario-anunciaran-e...
-- Yonathan Dossow
On Thu, 20 Mar 2025 at 10:58, Yonathan Dossow via tz <tz@iana.org> wrote:
today we have more confirmation of the change.
Aysen region will keep UTC-3 all year
Thanks; I've installed the attached patch, based heavily on Paul's earlier work, to the development repository. This obviously means we'll need a new release quite soon, but unfortunately the late announcement likely doesn't leave enough time for the change to be fully propagated before it takes effect in just over 16 days' time. Folks who only care about future timestamps could switch to Magallanes time (America/Punta_Arenas) as a temporary workaround. -- Tim Parenti
participants (3)
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Paul Eggert -
Tim Parenti -
Yonathan Dossow