35-year-old becomes president: Boric stands for the new generation of Chile

35-year-old becomes president
Boric stands for the new generation of Chile

With the ex-student leader Gabriel Boric, a young, left-wing candidate surprisingly clearly wins the presidential election in Chile. The result is also a break with the old structures of the military dictatorship. The 35-year-old is taking over a country in transition – but also with deep rifts.

The victory was surprisingly clear: With almost 56 percent of the vote, the former student leader Gabriel Boric (35) was elected the youngest president in the history of Chile. The German-born right-wing populist José Antonio Kast came in the runoff election to a good 44 percent. After he had indicated after the vote that he might not recognize a close result, Kast immediately congratulated his competitor on their victory after the results of the election became known on Sunday evening.

Boric’s supporters celebrate his victory in the capital, Santiago de Chile.

(Photo: picture alliance / dpa / AP)

Due to the huge political gap between the two candidates, the election was considered a turning point, and many even considered it the most important election since Chile’s return to democracy in 1990. A total of around 15 million people were eligible to vote. The turnout was 55 percent, which is high even for South America’s model country. The new president will take over from the conservative Sebastián Piñera on March 11th. Incumbent Piñera wished the future government “the greatest success” on Twitter.

Boric, who comes from Punta Arenas on the southern tip of the South American country, led the student protests in Chile in 2011 and was elected MP in 2013. In the first ballot four weeks ago, he was second just behind Kast. Before the runoff election, he and Kast tried to be more moderate than before.

Obviously, Boric, whose coalition the Communist Party belongs to, succeeded in expanding his base in the capital Santiago de Chile and winning supporters in rural areas of the long, narrow country between the Andes and the Pacific. For example, he hung up Kast in the northern region of Antofagasta, where there is a migration crisis.

“President of all Chileans”

In his first speech as elected president, with which he drew thousands to the Alameda main thoroughfare in Santiago de Chile, Boric assured him that he wanted to bridge the rifts between right and left that had emerged during the election campaign. “I will be the president of all Chileans,” he said.

With the runoff between Boric and Kast, not only did the traditional party structure in Chile become history for the time being. For the first time since the return to democracy in 1990, the traditional center-left and center-right parties failed to make it into the runoff election. With the 35-year-old Boric, a new political generation is now moving into the presidential palace, who no longer lived through the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) and who want to part with his legacy.

Boric had said during the election campaign that he wanted to bury the neoliberal economic model that General Pinochet had introduced in Chile with the help of the “Chicago Boys”. He stands for a revitalized progressive left, which has grown strongly since 2019 in particular. Under his leadership, the country is likely to maintain the course it has chosen to break up old structures, which for part of society seemed to have gone too fast and too far.

Welfare state based on the European model

Boric has promised a public education system and better health care modeled on the European welfare state. He also advocates the rights of migrants, indigenous peoples and homosexuals. On the other hand, his rival Kast, who was 20 years his senior, had promised tax cuts, a border trench against illegal immigration and crackdown on criminals. The father of nine and a devout Catholic from the Republican Party is considered a Pinochet sympathizer.

Chile has a long democratic tradition, which was interrupted for 17 years by the Pinochet coup in 1973, and is now regarded as a kind of model example in the region. The country has the highest per capita income in South America, and poverty has been reduced significantly in recent decades. But the social gap is also wide. Large parts of the health and education system have been privatized and are difficult to afford for many, and more and more Chileans feel left behind.

Two years ago, thousands of demonstrators called for social reforms and the resignation of Piñera every day for weeks. They have already been able to implement one of their most important demands, which Boric also supported: a convention is currently working on a new constitution. The current text dates from the time of the military dictatorship.

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