The most important presidential election in Chile since the end of the military dictatorship is about a lot. 35-year-old Gabriel Boric wants to be converted into a welfare state. Ten years ago, as a student leader, he laid the foundations for this. His adversary defends the neoliberal model.
It couldn’t be more pointed. “Kast and Piñera should die,” says Camila Moreno from the stage in the Chilean capital, Santiago, and asks the audience at an election event to clap along. The singer had her song “Quememos el reino” (“Let’s burn the kingdom down”) martially rewritten. The public outrage, a few days before the presidential election in Chile, the most important since the end of the military dictatorship in 1990, followed quickly in the media.
In the only OECD country in South America apart from Colombia, a vote will be held this Sunday as to whether the largely neoliberal economy should be converted into a social market economy, whether the state should expand the social systems and guarantee more social justice. After a new member Costa Rica is Chile the most unequal country in the OECD. The arch-conservative José Antonio Kast is against it, the social democratic Gabriel Boric for it. It is an epic runoff election for the future of Chile, the country in which the neoliberal model has reached its limits at the latest with the Revolution of the Road in 2019.
The 55-year-old Kast went for votes with the catchwords family, freedom and security. In the course of the election campaign, his statements and program were increasingly oriented towards the political center. But Kast is to the right of the outgoing conservative President Sebastián Piñera, who has maneuvered his way through the crises of the past two years with great skill, but as a major entrepreneur and head of state is seen as jointly responsible during the months of social protests and street battles. It is unpopular with large parts of the population.
Singer Moreno performed at an event for Boric. The former student leader has been a member of parliament from his home region of Magallanes and Chilean Antarctica for many years. The 35-year-old candidate from the ice has announced a conversion to a social market economy based on the European model. For some it gives hope for a change towards more social warmth and justice. For others it is simply the lesser of two evils. Because Kast feels programmatically close to the former dictator Augusto Pinochet, even if he repeatedly emphasizes his respect for democracy.
Old elite versus former student leaders
Boric is consistently ahead in surveys, but up to 30 percent of those surveyed gave no answer or did not yet know if they wanted to vote. In the past two weeks, no new surveys were allowed to be published, but two television debates between the two candidates took place. The election campaign ended just a few days ago. Before the first ballot in November, the polling institutes were largely correct in their forecasts. Just under 50 percent of those eligible to vote had cast their vote. In Chile, unlike in many other Latin American countries, voting is not compulsory.
The symbolic charge of the two candidates and their careers could hardly be greater. Kast is the son of German immigrants and a successful entrepreneur. He belongs to the economic and political upper class, against whom millions of Chileans revolted from the streets during the revolution, and which culminated in a constituent assembly. The extremely progressive assembly in Santiago is currently working on a new Carta Magna, which will be put to the vote again in the coming year by plebiscite. Kast wants to fight for their rejection, he is convinced that the existing constitution from Pinochet’s time does not need a revision. The private sector is guaranteed far-reaching rights, the state is limited to the role of rule watcher.
After Moreno’s appearance, Kast called for “any request to murder, kill or burn memorials and statues” to be rejected, regardless of the political direction. It is an example of how he cultivates his image among older Chileans, conservatives and the indecisive of the calm, principled family man who statesmanlike handling of conflicts. The Catholic has nine children and is against all abortions and same-sex marriages, does not want to change the neoliberal economic model and, for example, takes a hard hand against the independence movement of the indigenous Mapuche in the rural south of the country. It was there that Kast received the strongest support in the first ballot. He and his supporters claim the choice is a choice between “freedom and communism”.
More confidence in Boric
Boric comes from the middle class; he led the student movement ten years ago. Now he leads a broad alliance of parties and is openly supported by former presidents. The communists also belong to his alliance. If the new constitution is adopted in the coming year, Boric could pour into laws what he himself had laid the foundations for.
The Chileans find Boric much more approachable than Kast.
(Photo: AP)
A multitude of demands and inequalities had driven people into the streets and are still unsolved: the underfunded public health system, old-age poverty due to oligarchic pension funds that only pay out around a third of what they could, and largely privatized academic education for them Whole families have to throw themselves into debt.
In the first ballot, Boric’s supporters came mainly from the greater Santiago area, where more than a third of Chileans live. According to the latest independent survey, 37 percent of them consider health, education and the housing situation to be the most important issues, followed by security (23 percent), pension reform (18 percent), women’s rights (18 percent) and economic growth (16 percent). A large majority consider Boric to be more capable than Kast of ensuring more social justice, while the arch-conservative is said to be more competent in security and economic growth.
But the pandemic has left clear emotional marks in Chile. Fear, anxiety and sadness because of lost friends and relatives as well as an uncertain future are present in large parts of the population, especially in low-income groups. This is exactly what Kast has emphasized again and again in his election campaign, speaks of stability, of peace and quiet, draws a line from Boric and his electoral alliance on crime and the repeatedly visible social protests and disputes in Santiago. But in the end it’s about the person. Whether human closeness, future, dialogue and compromise ability, Boric is at the forefront in almost all questions about competence.