Presidential election in Chile: the left and the extreme right in the second round

Two candidates at the opposite end of the political spectrum, José Antonio Kast for the extreme right, and Gabriel Boric for the left, qualified, Sunday, November 21, for the second round of the presidential election in Chile, confirming the decline of traditional parties two years after the social revolt.

According to quasi-final results (95.58% of the ballots), José Antonio Kast, ex-deputy and lawyer of 55 years, obtains 27.95% of the votes, in front of Gabriel Boric, former student leader and deputy of 35 years, who receives 25.71% of the vote.

“We will find peace, order, progress and freedom,” declared in front of hundreds of supporters the leader of the Republican Party (far right), admirer of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and American Donald Trump.

“We have heard a majority of Chileans who want a country at peace and security”, added this father of nine children, who intends to maintain the ultraliberal model inherited from the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).

Gabriel Boric, candidate for the left-wing coalition “Apruebo dignidad” which includes the Communists in particular, for his part defended “a transformative, serious and responsible project, which guarantees the best quality of life for all of you”.

“We did not take to the streets to keep everything the same,” said the former leader of the Federation of Students of the University of Chile to his supporters, referring to the wave of unprecedented social protest that has rocked Chile at the end of 2019.

The pair were poll favorites to qualify for the Dec. 19 runoff and looked like outsiders, standing outside the right-wing and center-left coalitions that have ruled the country since the end of the dictatorship.

Fifteen million voters – out of a population of 19 million – were called to the polls to decide between seven candidates for the presidency, to renew the entire Chamber of Deputies, half of the Senate, as well as the regional councils.

“One fear against another”

The presidential election is taking place in a Chile in the midst of doubt, two years after tens of thousands of demonstrators took to the streets to demand a fairer society in this country rich in copper, but among the most unequal in the world, according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

A new Constitution, a strong demand from the demonstrators in 2019, is also being drafted. The election in May of the Assembly responsible for drafting the text had already highlighted the decline of traditional political parties in favor of independents, reflecting a deep crisis of institutional confidence.

Gabriel Boric, the youngest presidential candidate in the country’s history, can count on the support of millions of Chileans, including many young people, who aspire to more equality and a greater role for the state in the sectors of education and health.

“The country needs changes, we have had enough of the same politicians,” Felipe Rojas, a 24-year-old student, told AFP outside a polling station in the capital.

But the last few months have also seen an unprecedented rise of the far right in the polls, fueled by the persistence of violence by the most radical protesters and the growing concerns of voters over illegal immigration and crime.

Especially since the Covid-19 pandemic has raised unemployment, widened the debt and that inflation is now around 6%, a novelty in this country, after decades of political and economic stability.

“You have to come and vote to turn this page of division and disorder in the streets,” Cristina Arellano, a 42-year-old accountant, told AFP in front of a polling station in Ñuñoa, a bourgeois district of the capital.

In this context, the second round promises to be particularly polarized. “Kast represents the restoration of order, the return to everything that happened before the social crisis, but with an even harder hand”, analyzes Rodrigo Espinoza, professor at Diego Portales University.

“Boric is the deepening of political reforms within the framework of the demands of the demonstrators,” he adds.

The campaign for the second round, “it will be weeks of fierce competition to impose one image of fear against another,” predicts Marcelo Mella, professor of political science at the University of Santiago.

Conservative President Sebastian Piñera, 71, who could not stand for re-election after two terms (2010-2014, 2018-2022), called on candidates to take the “path of moderation, not polarization”.

With AFP