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SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — A leftist millennial who rose to prominence throughout anti-government protests was elected Chile’s subsequent president Sunday after a bruising marketing campaign in opposition to a free-market firebrand likened to Donald Trump.
With virtually 99% of polling stations reporting, Gabriel Boric gained 56% of the votes, in comparison with 44% for his opponent, lawmaker José Antonio Kast.
In a mannequin of civility that broke from the polarizing rhetoric of the marketing campaign, Kast instantly acknowledged defeat, tweeting a photograph of himself on the telephone together with his opponent congratulating him on his “grand triumph.” In the meantime outgoing President Sebastian Pinera — a conservative billionaire — held a video convention with Boric to supply his authorities’s full help in the course of the three month transition.
“I’m going to be the president of all Chileans,” Boric stated within the temporary televised look with Pinera.
Boric’s victory is more likely to be felt all through Latin America, the place ideological divisions have been on the rise amid the coronavirus pandemic, which reversed a decade of financial good points, uncovered longstanding deficiencies in well being care and deepened inequality.
At 35, Boric will change into Chile’s youngest trendy president when he takes workplace in March and solely the second millennial to steer in Latin America, after El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele.
He was amongst a number of activists elected to Congress in 2014 after main protests for increased high quality schooling. On the stump, he vowed to “bury” the neoliberal financial mannequin left by Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s 1973-1990 dictatorship and lift taxes on the “tremendous wealthy” to broaden social companies, battle inequality and enhance protections of the surroundings.
Kast, who has a historical past of defending Chile’s previous army dictatorship, completed forward of Boric by two factors in the primary spherical of voting final month however didn’t safe a majority of votes. That arrange a head-to-head runoff in opposition to Boric.
Boric was in a position to reverse the distinction by a bigger margin than pre-election opinion polls forecast by increasing past his base within the capital, Santiago, and attracting voters in rural areas who don’t facet with political extremes. For instance, within the northern area of Antofagasta, the place he completed third within the first spherical of voting, he trounced Kast by virtually 20 factors.
A further 1.2 million Chileans solid ballots Sunday in comparison with the primary spherical, elevating turnout to 55%, the very best since voting stopped being necessary in 2012.
Kast, 55, a religious Roman Catholic and father of 9, emerged from the far proper fringe after having gained lower than 8% of the vote in 2017. An admirer of Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, he rose steadily within the polls this time with a divisive discourse emphasizing conservative household values and enjoying on Chileans’ fears {that a} surge in migration — from Haiti and Venezuela — is driving crime.
As a lawmaker he has a file of attacking Chile’s LGBTQ group and advocating extra restrictive abortion legal guidelines. He additionally accused outgoing President Sebastian Pinera, a fellow conservative, of betraying the financial legacy of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, the nation’s former army chief. Kast’s brother, Miguel, was one in every of Pinochet’s prime advisers.
“I’m very relieved,” stated Mónica Salinero, a trainer who joined within the celebration of Boric’s victory on the Plaza Italia in Santiago, the location of protests in 2019.
In latest days, each candidates tried to veer towards the middle.
“I’m not an extremist. … I don’t really feel far proper,” Kast proclaimed within the remaining stretch at the same time as he was dogged by revelations that his German-born father had been a card-carrying member of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi get together.
Boric, who’s backed by a coalition of leftist events that features Chile’s Communist Celebration, introduced extra centrist advisers onto his staff and promised that any adjustments can be gradual and fiscally accountable.
“On either side, individuals are voting out of concern,” Robert Funk, a political scientist on the College of Chile, stated earlier than the vote depend. “Neither facet is especially enthused with their candidate however they’re voting out of concern that, if Kast wins, there’ll an authoritarian regression or as a result of they concern Boric is just too younger, inexperienced and aligned with the communists.”
Boric’s victory more likely to be tempered by a divided congress.
As well as, the political guidelines might quickly change as a result of a newly elected conference is rewriting the nation’s Pinochet-era structure. The conference — the nation’s strongest elected establishment — might in idea name for brand new presidential elections when it concludes its work subsequent yr and if the brand new constitution is ratified in a plebiscite.
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