Young leftist MP Gabriel Boric, backed by Frente Amplio and the Communist Party, won the second round of Chile’s presidential elections with more than 55.18% of the vote against 68.7% of the vote. His opponent, right-wing lawyer Jose Antonio Cast, who received 44.92% of the vote, has already acknowledged the victory of the former student leader.
They were considered the most volatile election since the restoration of democracy in a South American countryand for the first time since 1990, two foreign candidates from traditional center-left parties presented themselves in a second round with antagonistic programs in the economic and social fields.
Boric, 35, leader of the Amplio Front, represents a part of Chilean society that wants “profound change” and that participated in the massive equality protests in 2019: they want better pensions, education, health care and a strong focus on environmentalism and feminism.
Cast, a 55-year-old far-right candidate, is a devout Catholic and father of nine children, a member of a family clan that had political ties to the Pinochet dictatorship, a regime to which he submitted several times, and he was great for maintaining the status quo and staging the conservative and family values at the forefront.
