Chile’s elections will be defined in the second round on December 19 between the far-right José Antonio Kast and the leftist Gabriel Boric
Chile’s presidential elections will be defined in the second round on December 19 between the far-right José Antonio Kast and the leftist Gabriel Boric, radically antagonistic candidates who won this Sunday at the polls and whose results marginalized the options of the center.
The elections confirmed the rise of Kast predicted by the polls and led him to be the first preference of Chileans, with 28.01% of the votes when 92.75% of the ballots had been counted, surpassing 25.64 % reached by Boric, who according to most polls was the first favorite but who finished in second place in this first round.
Kast, a 55-year-old ex-MP and lawyer who has defended the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) on several occasions, did not even reach 8% of the votes in his first attempt to achieve the first magistracy, in 2017, and started the present campaign under the candidate of the ruling right, Sebastian Sichel, but ended up snatching the support of the most conservative.
Boric, a 35-year-old deputy and champion of a leftist formation that has the support of the Communist Party, presents a radically opposite program in its political, economic and social nature, which will force Chileans to choose between two very different projects in the ballot and the two candidates to seek support in the center to win.
The outgoing president of Chile, the conservative Sebastián Piñera, called after the elections for “moderation” and “non-polarization”, “responsibility” and “non-populism” in the run-up to the second round.
The polls relegated the option of a moderate right that ex-minister Sichel proposed (12.64%) and the center-left path that senator Yasna Proviste (11.71%), representatives of the traditional political blocs that have governed Chile the last decades.
“There is a certain polarization in the candidacies more than in the electorate, who considered that there were no good options in the center,” Robert Funk, an academic from the Institute of Public Affairs of the University of Chile, told Efe.
The surprise was given by the third place achieved by the libertarian economist Franco Parisi (12.95%), who resides in the United States and has campaigned from abroad.
The results of this first round are completed by the 7.59% achieved by the progressive Marco Enríquez-Ominami and the 1.46% achieved by the radical leftist Eduardo Artés.
Different programs of new political forces
Tonight’s winners are united by being representatives of political forces founded a few years ago and by collecting the vote disenchanted with the current institutional framework, but their government programs, as well as their vision of the phenomenon of social protests that broke out in 2019, differ by full.
Kast advocates minimizing the role of the State and increasing its efficiency, reducing public spending, reducing taxes and promoting the free market that enshrined the Pinochet constitution, approved in 1980 and in force today.
The ultra-rightist monopolized the discontent of those who saw a violent phenomenon in the social outbreak and raised the banner for the recovery of peace, to which he added an anti-immigration discourse and security guarantees regarding the indigenous conflict in the southern area of the country, where he accuses a terrorism problem.
“The only candidacy that is going to regain peace, which is the alternative to confront criminals and drug trafficking and that will put an end to terrorism is ours,” said Kast, celebrating the victory.
On the contrary, Boric responds in his program to the desire for change expressed by Chileans in the protests and projects a transition towards a new productive matrix, an increase in taxes and the strengthening of the role of the State to offer a model of solidarity pensions and a universal healthcare system.
In social matters, their positions could not be more different either, with the left-wing candidate flagging for feminism, homosexual marriage and abortion, matters that Kast repudiates.
“Today we have received a mandate and a responsibility that is tremendous. We have been entrusted to lead a dispute for democracy, inclusion, justice, and respect for the dignity of all. Everyone fits in this challenge, we have to work for the unity of the Democrats, “said Boric in his speech after the elections.
The triumph of the extremes leaves a very broad political center that both Kast and Boric will try to win in their favor for the ballot, for which they have already begun to wink at the voters of the rest of the candidates.
“It is a second round with a certain degree of polarization but the most possible is that both candidates, from their projects, which are quite antagonistic, moderate their speech to incorporate the more moderate electorate,” lawyer and political consultant Gonzalo Cordero told Efe.
The person who finally presides over the country and in March 2022 will take over from Piñera will have to work together with a Congress that will be defined today and where a very heterogeneous composition is visualized, according to preliminary results.
The present elections are considered one of the most transcendental in the recent history of Chile due to the responsibility that the new president will assume to accompany the constituent process opened as a result of the social outbreak, which can change the institutionality and engender a new country model.
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