The young left-wing deputy Gabriel Boric, champion of the Broad Front and the Communist Party, won the Presidency of Chile this Sunday by obtaining 55.18% of the votes with 68.7% of the polls scrutinized.
His opponent, the far-right lawyer José Antonio Kast, obtained 44.92% of the votes and acknowledged the defeat of the former student leader, who will become the youngest president in recent Chilean history in March 2022.
“I just spoke with Gabriel Boric and I have congratulated him on his great triumph. From today he is the elected president of Chile and deserves all our respect and constructive collaboration. Chile is always first,” Kast wrote on his Twitter account.
A 35-year-old MP and former student leader, Boric defines himself as an ecologist, feminist and regionalist and wants to expand the role of the state towards a welfare model similar to that of Europe.
He will be the most leftist president since the government of overthrown Salvador Allende (1973-1990) and the first who is not part of the two great blocs that shared power since the return to democracy in 1990.
“I am happy because I have been in Plaza Dignidad since October 18 (the day the wave of protests in 2019 broke out) and I was very afraid of the extreme right. I am happy because democracy won, “ said university student Bárbara Gómez to the doors of the hotel where the command of the virtual president-elect is meeting.
The same joy showed on the way to the celebrations Ignacio Valdés, 34 years old. “Chile has said no to fascism,” he assured him.
The experts pointed out that the difference between the two would be very narrow and would depend on participation, which in the first round of November 21 barely reached 50% of the roll.
According to official data, Boric obtained broad support in the capital, where half of the voters are, and in other regions with large urban centers, such as Valparaíso, where he gained almost 20 points of advantage.
It would also have been imposed even in the northern region of Antofagasta, an area that was won in the first round by Franco Parisi, a controversial economist whose voters mostly supported Kast in the face of the ballot.
Among the main challenges of the future Government will be to channel the social crisis that continues to exist since the 2019 protests, to lead the implementation of the norms of the new Constitution, and to face the economic challenges left by the pandemic.