The Leftist Millennial Who Could Lead One of Latin America's Wealthiest and Most Unequal Countries


Ciara Nugent
Fri, November 19, 2021,


Gabriel Boric
Supporters hold a cutout of Gabriel Boric, presidential candidate for the Social Convergence party, during a campaign rally ahead of the general election in Casablanca, Chile, on Thursday, Nov. 18, 2021. Credit - Cristobal Olivares—Bloomberg/Getty Images

Ten years ago, Gabriel Boric was a 25 year-old student protester, with shaggy hair and a beard, leading tens of thousands of young people through the streets of Santiago. As head of a major student union, he shook Chile’s establishment by leading rallies that brought reforms to Chile’s privatized education system. Today, aged 35—and with slightly tidier hair—Boric is within striking distance of Chile’s presidency.

Chile’s Nov. 21 election, where Boric is one of two frontrunners, is the most high-stakes moment yet in a tumultuous two year national debate over the market-centered economic model established by military dictator Augusto Pinochet in the 1980s. With deregulated business and privatized public services and natural resources, the system helped make Chile a haven for foreign investors and one of the richest countries in South America.

But it has also generated the highest rate of inequality in the OECD group of developed nations and untenable living costs for poorer Chileans, with six in ten households earning too little to cover monthly expenses, according to the National Statistics Institute. Starting in October 2019, hundreds of thousands of people participated in months of anti-government protests—a so-called “social explosion”—which culminated in a national vote in 2020 to rewrite the Pinochet-era constitution.

If elected, Boric, who has spent the past seven years as a congressman arguing for the ideals expressed in the social explosion, promises to kill off the old model for good. A Boric-led leftwing coalition would hike taxes on major industries, ramp up public spending to overhaul services, and scrap the private pension system that has underpinned Chile’s capital markets. “If Chile was the cradle of neoliberalism, it will also be its grave,” he told a rally in July after winning the primary for leftist bloc Approve Dignity.

Riot police vehicles spray tear gaz at demonstrators during a protest against Chile's government in Santiago, Chile, November 4, 2019.Jeremias Gonzalez—NurPhoto/Getty Images

For Boric’s supporters it’s a long-awaited chance to transform a country that has never worked for a majority of its citizens. For his critics, it’s a radical overreaction that will destroy the foundation of Chile’s wealth and stability.

To deliver his vision, though, Boric would have to defeat another insurgent, José Antonio Kast, 51. A far-right former congressman with ties to the Pinochet regime, Kast has surged in the polls over the past six months. His hardline conservative stances on police brutality, indigenous rights and immigration have earned him comparisons to Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro.

Recent polls put Kast on 26.5% of the vote, only marginally ahead of Boric’s 25%. Though pollsters warn that the recent social upheaval has made it exceedingly difficult to predict voter behavior, the candidates of the center-right ruling party and traditional center-left appear to be languishing in a distant fourth and third place.

The most likely outcome is that Boric and Kast pass to a second round vote in late December, presenting Chile with its starkest choice in decades, says Kenneth Bunker, a political analyst for Chilean media. “These candidates are much more extreme than what we’re used to and that’s opening up topics that we thought were closed in Chile,” he says. “If they pass to the second round, it’s going to be an absolute earthquake for the political system”
Who is Gabriel Boric?

Boric grew up in Magallanes, the southernmost region of Chile. He started in student activism in high school and in 2011, while studying law at the University of Chile, he was elected leader of its student union. That year, college students began a massive organized protest against low public funding and inequity in Chile’s education system, which Boric argued “treats our rights like consumer goods.” Marches and university occupations forced the government into negotiations that eventually yielded sweeping educational reforms.

Student leader Gabriel Boric delivers a speech during a protest to demand Chilean President Sebastian Pinera's government to improve public education quality in Santiago, on August 28, 2012

.Claudio Santana—AFP/Getty Images

In 2013, Boric was elected to congress for Magallanes as an independent. He has since cycled through membership of several “new left” parties—most recently Social Convergence—set up to challenge Chile’s longstanding center-left and far left blocs. Boric argues that the centrists, who have had previous stints in power, were not ambitious enough to tackle the country’s deep rooted inequality. Parts of the far-left, meanwhile, have unnerved voters by expressing support for authoritarian leftist regimes in Venezuela and Nicaragua.

Boric has embraced positions, such as making currently privately-held water rights a public or common resource, which previous leftist governments in Chile have shied away from. But he cuts a relatively moderate figure, often stressing the importance of dialogue with opponents and becoming one of the most vocal supporters of a November 2019 pact between political parties to end the violence in the streets. Boric’s campaign has focused on grassroots political participation, holding town halls to discuss policy before producing a manifesto of 13,000 proposals,

Bunker says younger Chileans appreciate Boric’s “brutal honesty”: he has for several years spoken openly about suffering from obsessive compulsive disorder and spending time in a psychiatric hospital, breaking a taboo around mental health in Chile. “He represents a younger, more modern, progressive voter, which makes people feel that he’s in synchronicity with the times,” Bunker says.
Chile at a crossroads

Kast offers a very different social and cultural vision for Chile, one aligned with the deeply conservative forces that have ruled in the past. Kast spent most of his political career in a rightwing party founded in the 1980’s that strongly supported the Pinochet regime, despite its murder and torture of tens of thousands of civilians. When Kast first ran for president in 2017—then achieving only marginal support—he claimed that if the dictator were still alive, “he would vote for me.”

Supporters of Chilean presidential candidate Jose Antonio Kast of the Republican Party hold a flag during the presidential campaign closing rally on November 18, 2021 in Santiago, Chile. Chileans will go to the polls on November 21.Marcelo Hernandez—Getty Images

Kast has promised to restore order to the streets after the protests, which he dubbed an “anti-social explosion” and recent conflicts with indigenous activists. His manifesto offers “unconditional support” for the carabineros, the police force that watchdogs have accused of human rights abuses (Boric wants to reform and “relaunch” the carabineros).

A staunch Catholic, Kast also wants to push to repeal a 2017 law that made abortion legal under a limited set of circumstances, and on the campaign trail, he has suggested the country dig a three meter-deep ditch along its northern border to keep out migrants and refugees from Venezuela.

But some of the campaign’s most intense debates have centered around the economic model. Kast’s brother, Michael, was a minister in the Pinochet regime and one of the so-called Chicago Boys—a group of economists who helped design Chile’s free market formula after studying at the University of Chicago under economist Milton Friedman. Kast has pledged to defend, “resolutely and rigidly” the model, cutting taxes, regulations and public spending, in order to restore economic growth after three years of recession caused by the unrest and COVID-19. Higher public spending during the pandemic has pushed the deficit to 11.5% of GDP this year, slightly lower than the current U.S. deficit of 12.4%.

Boric, meanwhile, wants a transformation. He advocates the cancellation of student debts, an increase in the minimum wage, expansion of public health care and the introduction of new taxes on the wealthy and on the mining companies that have made fortunes out of Chile’s vast copper resources.

Boric’s most controversial proposal, though, is a plan to replace Chile’s private pension system with a state one. Introduced by Pinochet in 1981, the private scheme obliges Chileans to pay 10% of their income into a pension fund managed by a company, freeing up individual savings for investment in local capital markets.

Multilateral organizations like the World Bank have held up the system as an example for emerging economies struggling to afford public pensions. But many Chileans say it has provided only paltry payouts for retirees and six in 10 want it replaced with a public system.

Stability in question

The pension debate in Chile, which helped fuel the 2019 protests, is now the focal point of concern for business leaders and foreign investors about the future direction of the country as a whole. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, congress has voted three times to allow Chileans to take out 10% of their pension to help cope with job losses, which economists say could have a severe long term impact on future retirees.

Boric’s vote in favour of those withdrawals have led some foreign investors to fear a potential populist slant in his economic policy. “The question is whether [increased public spending] will be done in a responsible way,” Alberto Ramos, a Goldman Sachs analyst told the Financial Times. “They are slowly deviating from the macro model that made Chile the poster child of fiscal responsibility.”

Boric’s critics also say the presence of the Communist Party in his electoral bloc, members of which will likely hold a significant minority of seats in a Boric-led coalition, would allow more radical voices into government, with a potential destabilizing effect for one of the most stable countries in Latin America.

But a Kast victory may be even more destabilizing for Chile, argues Claudia Heiss, head of political science at the University of Chile’s Institute of Public Affairs. Kast is hostile to the project that Chile undertook after the 2019 protests to rewrite its constitution. He says that if he doesn’t like the new draft, due to be delivered by an elected assembly next year ahead of a referendum, he would campaign for it to be rejected.

“The political system has already started taking a change in direction with the constitutional process and Kast is in conflict with that process,” Heiss says. “I think a Boric government can help do the reforms people have asked for, and make the institutional, political route viable. Without that route, we might go back to the large shocks that we saw in the social explosion.”

'Burning the metro': Chile election divides voters between protest and order





Polling station ahead of the upcoming presidential election in Santiago

Sat, November 20, 2021
By Gram Slattery

SANTIAGO (Reuters) - For many Chileans, Plaza Baquedano, a broad rotary in central Santiago that for decades served as a center of social protest, has become a powerful symbol of hope.

For two years, city residents have regularly gathered here https://graphics.reuters.com/CHILE-PROTESTS/0100B32527X/index.html to protest pensions that are too low, public transit fees that are too high and, more generally, an old-guard political class that just does not get it.

The statue of a nineteenth-century general that sat at the plaza's center has been removed https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chile-protests-idUSKBN2B3255, and its plinth is now covered in left-wing political literature.

Most credit the protests - known collectively as the "estallido social" or "social outbreak" - for bringing about an ongoing rewrite of the nation's Pinochet-era constitution

 https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/chile-begins-down-uncertain-road-writing-new-constitution-2021-05-17. The "estallido" has also helped propel the candidacy of 35-year-old leftist Gabriel Boric, a relative newcomer who has become a serious contender in this Sunday's presidential election https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/former-protest-leader-boric-seeks-bury-chiles-neoliberal-past-2021-11-17

But not everyone is so enthralled.

Among the detractors is Ramon Zambrano, a doorman at a nearby apartment building.

"You can protest, but peacefully. They're making a mess, burning cars, burning the metro. What are they doing?" he asks, while pointing out the damage done to the now graffiti-covered building where he works.

In a sense, the situation around Plaza Baquedano represents the central paradox of the election here. While Chile's Left gained significant traction via dozens of massive marches that began in 2019, two years of sometimes-violent protests have made many voters wary.

That - combined with a widespread perception among Chileans that crime is on the rise - has created an opportunity for the Right to gain ground by hammering home a law-and-order message.

While Boric, who rose to fame heading student protests in 2011, had been leading for most of 2021, José Antonio Kast, an ultra-right-wing former congressman who draws comparisons to Donald Trump and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/chiles-bolsonaro-hard-right-kast-rises-with-frank-talk-crime-focus-2021-11-16, has risen in the polls dramatically in recent weeks.

Most recent polls show Kast drawing the largest vote share on Sunday. A Nov. 6 survey by consultancy Activa Research has Kast narrowly winning a likely runoff https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/chile-conservative-kast-maintains-lead-final-pre-election-opinion-polls-2021-11-06 in December.

BURNED OUT

For Kenneth Bunker, director of political consultancy Tresquintos, a particularly violent round of protests in late October helped boost the Right.

A series https://www.reuters.com/article/us-chile-mapuche-conflict-idUSKCN25230C of recent confrontations https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/freight-train-derailed-burned-southern-chile-amid-indigenous-conflict-2021-11-02 in the southern Araucania and Bio Bio provinces - where police and separatist indigenous groups have long feuded - has also played into Kast's hands.

"I think there is a very important part of the country that's tired, they don't want any more of this," said Gonzalo Cordero, a political consultant and columnist for the national La Tercera newspaper.

Boric's supporters point out that almost 80% of Chileans, many fed up with the nation's ultra-free-market economic model, voted last year to rewrite the nation's constitution https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/freight-train-derailed-burned-southern-chile-amid-indigenous-conflict-2021-11-02

 A conservative like Kast would do little to quell discontent, they argue.

"I think that if Kast is elected, there will be an 'estallido 2.0'," said Pedro Muñoz, an elected member of the body re-writing Chile's constitution.

Still, the Kast campaign is leaning in to the law-and-order message, as are his supporters.

At his campaign's closing event on Thursday night, he pledged repeatedly to crack down on crime. The strongest applause came when he spoke in favor of police officers, many of whom have been accused by the public and prosecutors of using violence against protestors.

Several supporters insisted without evidence in interviews that the "estallido" was the product of foreign provocateurs, such as the Venezuelan or Cuban governments.

Banners in favor of Trump were common, as were anti-crime banners such as "Orden con Kast," or "Order with Kast."

Boric, for his part, is leaning in, too. While for Kast's supporters the protests are a symptom of decline and disorder, for Boric, they are a sign the previous order was not worth saving.

"We're going to do our politics from the streets," Boric said at his own campaign event on Thursday night.

(Reporting by Gram Slattery; Additional reporting by Fabian Cambero and Natalia A. Ramos Miranda; Editing by Daniel Wallis)

Churches burnt as thousands mark Chile protest movement anniversary
BURNING IS NOT VIOLENT IT IS VANDALISM

Issued on: 19/10/2020
Santiago (AFP)

The spire of a church set on fire topples during a protest against Chile's government, on the one-year anniversary of the protests and riots that rocked the capital in 2019, in Santiago, Chile, October 18, 2020. © REUTERS - Ivan Alvarado

Two churches were torched as tens of thousands of demonstrators gathered Sunday in a central Santiago square to mark the anniversary of a protest movement that broke out last year demanding greater equality in Chile.

The demonstration comes just a week before Chileans vote in a referendum on whether to replace the dictatorship-era constitution -- one of the key demands when the protest movement began on October 18, 2019.

While the morning brought a largely festive atmosphere to the protests at Plaza Italia, there were several incidents of violence, looting and vandalism in the afternoon.

One church close to Plaza Italia was burnt to the ground as hooded protesters cheered, while a second place of worship was looted and also suffered fire damage.

Firefighters managed to get that blaze under control, though.

The small Church of the Assumption that was totally destroyed is known as the "artists' parish," according to local press.

There were clashes between groups of football hooligans in one Santiago neighborhood, while protesters in Plaza Italia doused a statue with red paint.

The communist mayor of a neighborhood near the central square, Daniel Jadue, was hounded out of Plaza Italia by protesters.

Yet it was a different feeling in the morning when demonstrators, many wearing masks to protect against the coronavirus pandemic, held up banners, sang and danced. Police even gradually pulled back from the Plaza Italia.

"It's great, very good and positive. They're pure good things for Chile in everything from here," demonstrator Viviana Donoso, 43, told AFP as she and a group of people danced to drums.

"The people of Chile need to unite, and we have to believe that we can do things."

Some even turned up to the demonstration in fancy dress.

- Hopes of a 'fairer Chile' -

For Victor Hugo de la Fuente, a journalist and manager at the Chilean edition of Le Monde Diplomatique, happiness reigned amongst protesters "due to the possibility of progressing and achieving a fairer and more democratic Chile."

Demonstrators also called for their countrymen to vote to "approve" the proposed constitutional change.

"This is the opportunity to say enough! We're here and we're going to vote for 'Approve,'" Paulina Villarroel, a 29-year-old psychologist, told AFP.

The government of President Sebastian Pinera -- one of the protesters' main targets -- called on demonstrators to be peaceful and to respect coronavirus restrictions.

The deadly outbreak has left 13,600 Chileans dead with more than 490,000 infected.

Protests broke out a year ago initially as a response to a hike in metro fares, before mushrooming into a general demonstration against inequality and the government.

On one night of unrest, a dozen metro stations were set ablaze, bus stops were smashed, supermarkets looted, buildings vandalized and protesters clashed with riot police who fired tear gas and used water cannons.

© 2020 AFP

Churches burnt as Chile anniversary rallies turn violent

Issued on: 19/10/2020 - 

Text by:NEWS WIRES

Demonstrators set a police vehicle on fire during clashes between security forces and protesters marking the first anniversary of Chile's social unrest over inequality 

Martin BERNETTI AFP

Tens of thousands of Chileans gathered in the central square of Santiago to mark the one-year anniversary of mass protests that left over 30 dead and thousands injured, with peaceful rallies on Sunday devolving by nightfall into riots and looting

People gathered early in the day in demonstrations downtown and in cities throughout Chile that gained size and fervor through the evening. Many touted signs and rainbow colored homemade banners calling for a "yes" vote next Sunday in a referendum over whether to scrap the country's dictatorship-era Constitution, a key demand of the 2019 protests.

The demonstrations, while largely peaceful early on, were marred by increasing incidents of violence, looting of supermarkets and clashes with police across the capital later in the day. Fire truck sirens, burning barricades on roadways and fireworks on downtown streets added to a sense of chaos in some neighborhoods.

Interior Minister Victor Perez spoke late in the evening, praising the early, peaceful rallies while blasting the late-night mayhem. He called on Chileans to settle their differences by voting in the upcoming Oct. 25 constitutional referendum.

"Those who carry out these acts of violence do not want Chileans to solve our problems through democratic means," Perez told reporters, vowing to punish those who crossed the line Sunday.

Early in the day, an angry mob jeered and threatened a Communist Party mayor. Later, masked individuals firebombed a police headquarters and church. Vandals attacked another Santiago church in the early evening, setting its spire aflame and choking side streets with smoke.

More than 15 metro stations were temporarily closed amid the unrest. Police fired tear gas and water cannons in skirmishes with sometimes violent, hooded and masked people.

Last year's protests, which began Oct. 18, raged until mid-December as Chileans gathered nationwide to call for reforms to the pension, healthcare and education systems.

Rioting and looting resulted in billions of dollars in damage and losses to the country's businesses and infrastructure. The unrest saw the military take to the streets for the first time since the rule of dictator Augusto Pinochet.

Police estimated that Sunday's rally in Santiago attracted around 25,000 people by 6 p.m., far smaller than the largest protests of 2019.

In the past few days, small-scale demonstrations and isolated incidents of violence have nonetheless resurfaced in Chile, as the capital's 6 million citizens emerge from months of confinement following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Most demonstrators on Sunday wore masks, but many could be seen in tight groups, raising concerns about a potential health risk.

(REUTERS)

Thousands take to Chile streets to mark protest movement anniversary

Issued on: 18/10/2020 - 

Santiago (AFP)

Thousands of demonstrators gathered Sunday in a central Santiago square to mark the anniversary of a protest movement that broke out last year demanding greater equality in Chile.

The demonstration comes just a week before Chileans vote in a referendum on whether to replace the dictatorship-era constitution -- one of the key demands when the protest movement began on October 18, 2019.

There was a festive atmosphere on the Plaza Italia as demonstrators, many wearing masks to protect against the coronavirus pandemic, held up banners, sang and danced.
There were isolated clashes with police, who gradually pulled back from the central square.

"It's great, very good and positive. They're pure good things for Chile in everything from here," demonstrator Viviana Donoso, 43, told AFP as she and a group of people danced to drums.

"The people of Chile need to unite, and we have to believe that we can do things."

For Victor Hugo de la Fuente, a journalist and manager at the Chilean edition of Le Monde Diplomatique, happiness reigned amongst protesters "due to the possibility of progressing and achieving a fairer and more democratic Chile."

Demonstrators also called for their countrymen to vote to "approve" the proposed constitutional change.

"This is the opportunity to say enough! We're here and we're going to vote for 'Approve,'" Paulina Villarroel, a 29-year-old psychologist, told AFP.

The government of President Sebastian Pinera -- one of the protesters' main targets -- called on demonstrators to be peaceful and to respect coronavirus restrictions.

The deadly outbreak has left 13,600 Chileans dead with more than 490,000 infected.

Chileans Clash with Police in Latest Protests in Santiago (+Video)

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Police in Santiago fired tear gas and water cannons at protesters, who gathered in Italy Square on Friday for a demonstration against the government of Sebastian Pinera.

• January, 25, 2020 - 12:03 
• World 
 

The rally came as a Chilean police officer appeared for the first time in court for firing a buckshot in the eye of a protester causing severe injury.

Chile has been rocked by nation-wide protests since October, which were triggered a now-withdrawn increase in subway fares. Social discontent has been fueled by frustration with President Sebastian Pinera's policies and growing inequality.

DON'T BELIEVE THE IRANIAN PRESS OK 

HOW'S ABOUT THE INDEPENDENT UK PRESS 

Beaten, mutilated and forced to undress: 

Inside Chile’s brutal police crackdown against protesters

Security forces have deliberately shot demonstrators in the eyes and forced those arrested to strip naked. 

Some of those affected tell Naomi Larsson

Demonstrators take cover as they clash with riot police during a protest against the government ( AFP/Getty )

Breathing air thick with teargas and smoke from makeshift barricades on Valparaiso’s street corners, Carla Casoni remembers feeling her skin and eyes burn with the chemical-infused water used as a common police tactic to disperse demonstrators.

“I lost vision temporarily so I was an easy target for the police,” she says. Casoni is one of nearly 30,000 people who have been detained, many arbitrarily, in more than two months of unrest that has swept across Chile.

Just days before Casoni’s detention in the port city on 22 October, Chile had imploded into a social uprising initially sparked by a student protest over metro fare hikes in Santiago. People across the country have since mobilised against economic and social inequality, engaging in mostly peaceful but sometimes violent protests.

Over the weeks, protests have been met with state repression. Soon after the unrest began, President Sebastian Pinera sent military to the streets and issued a curfew, declaring authorities “are at war”. In the following two months, security forces have been accused by rights groups of brutality and a series of human rights abuses, including torture and sexual violence.

Casoni tells The Independent she was beaten by Chile’s Carabineros, the militarised police force, during a protest in the port city. She was with demonstrators who had blocked Avenida Errazuriz, a main thoroughfare in Valparaiso, when a Carabinero pinned her to a tree and hit her legs and back with a baton. She claims she was hit again while she looked for her documents and ID card, and again on the way to the police vehicle.

She describes hours in detention at a local police station as being robbed of her dignity. She says she and other detainees were forced to undress as part of a rigorous search process that has been condemned by rights groups. Casoni had to strip twice, once at the police station, and again while being detained by the gendarmeria, Chile’s penitentiary unit, where she was forced to perform squats while naked in front of a group of other detainees and officials.

Riots flare across Chile as anti-government protests continue
Show all 45 MORE AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PAGE





The practice of forced nudity was banned during a revision of police protocols in March 2019, yet human rights organisations have filed hundreds of complaints of inhumane treatment since October. Records from the country’s National Human Rights Institute, reviewed by Human Rights Watch, show officers were more likely to force women and girls to strip than men.

“It’s a gross abuse of power,” she adds. “It’s very degrading. It’s important to underline that all women have been through this process of being ‘searched’ like this – pregnant women, older women.”

Casoni spent the night in a 2mX3m cell with 17 other women who had been arrested during the protests, one pregnant, and another who was over 60-years-old. They were not told the reason for their arrest and were denied their rights to a phone call. They were kept overnight without food or water.
Read more
 

Inside the women-led protest against sexual assault in Chile

Casoni says they were also denied medical help despite one woman experiencing a panic attack, and another having obvious external injuries including wounds on arms and legs that needed immediate medical attention.

Independent news email

“Only later have I begun to feel the consequences of this experience,” she says. “I have anxiety, and a general feeling of insecurity and distrust.”

Her account exposes the cruel treatment and sexual violence many people have experienced at the hands of Chile’s police forces. “I’m only giving an account of this particular district, on one night of protest. This is happening everywhere, this abuse of power is systematic,” she says.

The National Human Rights Institute concluded in its annual report that the state’s response to the mass protests “produced, as a whole, the most serious and multiple violations of human rights committed since 1989”, referring to the 17-year dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet that ended in 1990. The national police force has not been purged or reformed in the 30 years since.

It has presented 1,080 judicial actions against Chile’s security forces, including allegations of torture, rape, and homicide.

“This happened in democracy, in our democracy. How was it possible,” Sergio Micco, then director of the institute, said, referring to the human rights abuses and repressive measures taken by state forces.

The United Nations and NGOs including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have condemned the level of repression, calling for urgent police reform.
I want to say to the rest of the world, don’t abandon us. Don’t forget us. In Chile they are mutilating us Albano Toro Cardenas, medical worker

“During these two months the repression and the acts of the Carabineros has been a strategy to implement terror into the population,” says Claudio Nash, a professor at the University of Chile’s department of international law. “What they want is that the public don’t go out on the streets to protest, under the threat that if they do the consequences will be severe – you could be arbitrarily detained, beaten, possibly tortured.”

Teargas, water cannon and “non-lethal” firearms, including pellets or rubber bullets, are used as common practice to disperse protests, but rights groups say this is excessive use of force, especially on non-violent protesters.

Studies have found that the water used to disband protests contains pepper spray and caustic soda, while the supposed rubber bullets used by police were found to contain materials like lead, and just 20 per cent rubber.

Out on the streets, some 405 people are estimated to have suffered severe eye injuries from non-lethal firearms or teargas canisters.

The UN said the “alarmingly” high number of people with eye injuries suggests the weapons have been used “improperly and indiscriminately against international principles”. The victims say police shot directly at their faces.

Medical worker Albano Toro Cardenas, 40, was volunteering to help the wounded during a protest in Iquique in November.

Volunteers had set up a makeshift medical centre on a side street, treating people with multiple lesions from firearms. He remembers a chaotic day of protests, the air filled with teargas and the sounds of gunshots piercing the air.

Toro’s voice falters when he recalls the moment that changed his life forever.
Albano Toro Cardenas says he was shot in the eye by security forces (Naomi Larsson/The Independent)

He describes “a concerted effort by special forces” to disperse people from the streets at night. Toro was clearly identified as a medical worker and wore protective gear, but it proved to be in vain. During the crackdown on protests, he felt a sudden impact on his left eye.

“They shot at my face, shattering my cornea and destroying my eye. At this moment I’ve lost my vision completely and I’m not going to get it back,” he says, revealing his left eyeball that is bloodied and red. Toro can’t identify the officer who shot at him, but he believes being hit in the eye with a pellet was no accident.

“This has changed my life. I haven’t returned to normal life, I can’t leave my house. The headaches, the stress and trauma are severe,” he says.

“We’re in crisis. All of us are affected – poor people, workers, business people. I was protesting by helping the wounded, and this is what I have had to pay.”

Cristian Correa, a legal adviser for a commission in Chile responsible for identifying the disappeared during the dictatorship, says the level of police violence is “really worrisome”.

“When you read the type of abuses, its stuff that reminds me of the dictatorship. I don’t see much of a difference between those reports and the reports from the conduct of police during the dictatorship,” he adds.

The director of the Carabineros, Gen Mario Rozas, has said there are 856 internal investigations underway related to the reports.

Chile’s president, writing in The New York Times, has said: “During these difficult and violent times, as we fought to restore public order and security, our government took all necessary measures and precautions to ensure the utmost respect for the human rights of all our citizens.
Chile protesters fighting riot police with lasers

“There is evidence of abuses and excessive use of force, but we granted our autonomous National Human Rights Institute full access to perform its legal mandate in the protection of human rights.”

But as the days go on and parts of the country return to a sense of normality, the brutality seems to have become a part of life here.

In December, video footage shared on social media showed a 20-year-old man being rammed by police vehicles in Santiago. The officer driving the vehicle has been charged.

For the thousands who have faced repression first hand, the damage feels irreparable and the words of the state do little to help.

“I want to say to the rest of the world, don’t abandon us. Don’t forget us. In Chile they are mutilating us,” says Toro.

A demonstrator blows fire from his mouth as he clashes with riot police 

REUTERS
Observers compared the use of lasers to futuristic warfare or a dance club party
AFP via Getty Images
LIKE HONG KONG THE TRANSMISSION OF PROTEST TACTICS WENT WORLD WIDE
AS RAPIDLY AS A TWEET 

Demonstrators use laser beams during an anti-goverment protest in Santiago, Chile on 12 November.

REUTERS

A demonstrator throws stones

An anti-government demonstrator covers his mouth and nose during a protest with a sticker on his head that reads in Spanish: "Dignity,"

A demonstrator uses a tennis racket to throw a tear gas canister back at riot police

AFP via Getty Images

Demonstrators point green laser lights at riot police officers

Getty Images

Chile: Behind the Left’s Victory

Summary: Background and context for Chile’s runoff election – Editors

https://imhojournal.org/

In a stunning turnaround from the first round of voting four weeks ago, Left presidential candidate Gabriel Boric swept to victory Dec 19 over Right wing candidate José Antonio Kast by a margin of 56% to 44%. At 35 years of age Boric will become the youngest president in Chile’s history and one of the youngest heads of state in the world. To achieve this Boric increased his second round vote by 2.8 million to 4.6 million votes. This is more than 2.5 times his first round total four weeks earlier, which is remarkable.

Where did the 2.8 million votes come from? Boric was able to attract 1.2 million new voters into the second round despite customary Chilean voter abstention. These abstaining voters include youth, marginalized city dwellers, and rural populations. Of the seven first round presidential candidates, the four Center Left candidates threw all their 1.5 million votes to Boric. Surprisingly he also picked up 110,000 votes from the Center Right to reach the 2.8 million increase.

After the neoliberal abandonment of compulsory voting in 2012, Chilean elections have been marked by low voter turnout and apathy. Voters show low identification with parties. In the words of Noam Titelman, Chilean political scientist at the London School of Economics, the point to understand about the past two years in Chile is that “rather than being a turn to the Left, it’s been a turn against the elites. And while that turn has for some time been expressed in more progressive demands, it could at any moment be expressed by the far Right.” Happily, this election showed the anger against elites continues to favor the Left. On Dec 19 the Right wing message was rejected by Chilean voters.

Nevertheless, it is important to acknowledge that grassroots opposition to elites in Chile maintains its independence from Left and Right electoral politics. This shown by the December 19, 2021 vote totals:

Left (Boric) 4,620,671 (30.7%)

Right (Kast) 3,649,647 (24.3%)

Voters Abstaining 6,760,656 (45.0%)

Total Eligible Voters 15,030,974 (100.0%)

Thus the winning candidate on Dec 19 was ‘Abstain’ with 45.0% of the eligible vote. Boric came in second with 30.7% and the Rightist Kast a distant third with 24.3% of eligible voters.

There is a similar dynamic in U.S. politics where the Republican Party counts on voter apathy and abstention in its continuing effort to impose minority rule. Regarding the highly contested 2020 U.S. presidential election, Biden won 34% of eligible votes and Trump 31%, with 33% of the eligible voters declining to vote. Thus in the disputed U.S. election Trump did not come in second, but third.

The 67% turnout of the 2020 U.S. presidential election is low by Brazilian or Swedish standards but significantly higher than the 55% turnout in the 2021 Chilean election. Nevertheless, Boric’s supporters point to the 55% turnout as a validation of their candidate because it is the highest voter turnout in a Chilean election since 2012.

Gabriel Boric should be congratulated on his victory because his astute second round negotiation delivered the full support of all Center Left coalitions and brought 1.2 million new voters into the process in Boric’s favor. Nevertheless, it is important to acknowledge that the 45.0% non-voting bloc represents a significant check on any future Chilean administration. At 6.8 million voters this bloc includes some of the 3.7 million Chileans who drove the 2019 Uprising against Chile’s neoliberal regime in which $3.5 billion USD in private property was destroyed. The Uprising’s primary demand was for an elected Constitutional Convention to write a new democratic Constitution for Chile. Faced with millions of angry citizens in the streets and billions of dollars in targeted property destruction, Right-wing president Sebastian Piñera granted the Uprising’s audacious request. Elections for a Constitutional Convention were held in May 2021.

It is important to realize that Left street protest and Left electoral politics operate in tension in Chile. During the 2019 Uprising observers saw protesters would not allow the display of banners or insignia by established Left political parties. This “leaderless” insurrection had no apparent central coordinating body. Rocio Lorca, University of Chile law professor and Boric supporter, said Boric’s signature of an “institutional solution” to the 2019 Uprising was done against the wishes of his activist base. Moreover, Boric’s support for the incarceration of arrested protesters enraged the activist street Left. Boric is an astute politician who makes calculated choices in the context of the current situation. This situation was characterized by Chilean scholar Melany Cruz as follows, “Social movements are not going to go away. Whoever is in power will have to deal with these actors..The Uprising will start again.” Moreover, according to author Victor Figueroa Clark, “Social movements will keep tabs on the new government and hold them accountable.”

Thus there is a dual, but conflicted Left strategy at play inside and outside of state institutions in Chile. The prime leader of the inside strategy is Gabriel Boric and he is given high praise in this role. Chilean law professor Rocio Lorca says during the 2019 Uprising Boric was crucial to negotiating details of the new Constitutional Convention with the Right-wing Piñera government. The Constitutional Convention is under deadline to complete its work for a 2022 ratification by popular plebiscite. It will be Boric’s job as president-elect to see this happens. The current Piñera government has done little to assist the process and much to derail it. Rocio Lorca as a legal specialist is relieved that Boric won and and says this historic process is now “in good hands”.

Another significant challenge to Boric’s negotiating skills will be to win passage of a Left agenda through Chile’s current Congress. The four center Left coalitions control 51% of the 155 seats in the Chamber of Deputies. However, the 50 seat Senate is deadlocked with the Right controlling 25 seats. The Center Left controls 23 seats and must gain the support of 2 Independents to counter the Right. Boric will need every one of the Center Left votes he negotiated in the Dec 19 runoff to make headway with the current Chilean Congress. The threat of stalemated obstruction is real. In this, the outside strategy of the street Left comes into play. Although Boric does not control the outside strategy, Chilean youth and marginalized urban and rural populations can once again quickly throw themselves into forceful and militant protest when elites move to deny them basic needs. In the political stalemate and obstruction now afflicting the United States Congress it is noteworthy that forceful and militant street protest are missing and absence of progress is the clear result.

On balance, the Dec 19 Chilean election represents a turning point for a country that has weathered fifty years of political and economic assault from the neoliberal Right. For reference the background and context of the 2021 Chilean election include the following issues.

There is a legacy of decades of neoliberalism in Chile where the top 1% take 30% of the national wealth followed by the next 49% who are rewarded with two-thirds of the nation’s wealth. The latter is a good deal for Chile’s new ‘middle class’. Unfortunately, the bottom 50% of the population are left with only 2% of Chile’s income.

Chile’s vaunted ‘economic miracle’ covers up one of the highest levels of income inequality among OECD members. At $25,000 USD the national per capita income appears respectable but the fact is 70% of workers earn less than $7,400 USD per year.

In Chile all basic services are privatized, forcing Chileans to ‘purchase’ education, health services, even water. Working people resort to credit to make ends meet leaving Chileans with the highest household debt in Latin America. A significant portion of this is credit card debt. The current Right-wing president of Chile, billionaire Sebastian Piñera, made his fortune through the distribution of credit cards to the Chilean population collecting interest payments on people’s purchase of basic services.

Critical background to the social struggle in Chile today includes the growth of grassroots networks of mutual aid outside of government institutions and the 2019 “estallido social” (social explosion) where 3.7 million Chileans went into the streets in the largest protest in Chile’s history. Representing one out of every five people in the country Chile’s 2019 protest, on a proportional basis, was three times the size of the USA George Floyd protests. In what was termed a “leaderless” movement, protesting Chileans destroyed $3.5 billion USD in private property including the Santiago subway system where a fare increase sparked the initial protests.

A demand of the 2019 Uprising was a new Constitution to replace the neoliberal Constitution of 1980 imposed by Pinochet’s military dictatorship. In the May 2021 elections for a Constitutional Convention, the Chilean Right sought a blocking minority of one-third and the right of veto over all articles of the future Constitution. They were not successful. The 155 delegates were widely and directly elected by 65 different political organizations in several coalitions. In fact the Far Left won 35% of the delegates and thus obtained the blocking minority and right of veto over all articles. The Far Left and Center Left have 52% of all delegates and need to convince 25 of 39 independents to gain the 67% margin needed to win approval for their draft of the Constitution. This is achievable. In the Left-leaning Constitutional Convention it is noteworthy that 42% of the elected delegates are individuals with no party affiliation.

The Right wing candidate in the Dec 19 runoff election was José Antonio Kast. The Kast campaign was a backlash against the 2019 Uprising plus the ongoing feminist wave of struggle. Kast promised his supporters he would end mass mobilizations in Chile by increasing police violence. Kast implied, moreover, that he would persecute the progressive Chilean Left in the way Dilma Rousseff and Lula da Silva were removed from office and incarcerated in Brazil.

José Antonio Kast proposed deep ditches at Chile’s borders with Bolivia and Peru (as opposed to walls) to stop unwanted migrants. In the face of social protest Kast openly praises the brutal Pinochet dictatorship as Chile’s answer. Kast stokes fears of drug cartels and Indigenous rights activists to demand enhanced levels of state security. Kast speaks strongly against feminism, same sex relationships, and all forms of abortion. In these culture wars Kast partners with U.S. based Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) a legal advocacy group of the Religious Right.

Neoliberalism’s loss of credibility following the 2008 global crash has given rise to explosive anti-establishment feelings worldwide. In response, global elites have turned to the extreme Right and a politics of borders, authoritarianism, and social conservatism to maintain electoral coalitions. It is significant that Chilean voters when presented with a strong and familiar Right-wing narrative, rejected it by a margin of 74% on Dec 19. After 50 years could this represent a final crisis of legitimacy for the Chilean Right? Given Trump’s ongoing machinations, it is noteworthy that Kast conceded defeat quickly the same day. Could Chile represent an international turning point in the global crisis of neoliberalism?

The winning Left-wing candidate is Gabriel Boric, a former student leader and member of the Social Convergence party in the Frente Amplio coalition. Boric’s party are advocates of libertarian socialism, autonomism, and feminism. He campaigned on the slogan, “If Chile was the birthplace of neoliberalism, then it will also be its graveyard!” Boric was elected by a wide margin to head the larger Left electoral slate Apruebo Dignidad which includes the Communist Party of Chile. Given the youth, relative inexperience, and outsider status of the leaders of Frente Amplio, they have made concerted efforts to reassure the leaders of centrist political parties in order to secure their support in this election. There is a danger Boric and team will compromise with political centrists and will abandon the interests of the popular base who made the Uprising and who won the commitment to re-write Chile’s Constitution.

Three days before the runoff, Michael Chessum published an observation in the London Review of Books which visualizes a path forward for Chile.


The left faces a series of strategic dilemmas…It remains to be seen how far Boric will moderate his programme in the hope of winning over centrist voters. The young leaders of the Chilean left have to work out how to replace the establishment without becoming it.

As Chile’s inside Left work capably on institutional solutions, Chile’s independent social movements continue outside as a counterweight. We see a Left that endeavors to assimilate the hard lessons of history. A new generation has the stage in Chile. As we watch them work to fulfill Boric’s campaign slogan we are encouraged. “If Chile was the birthplace of neoliberalism, then it will also be its graveyard!”

Bill Young

Bill Young has a degree in Latin American studies and has traveled widely in the region. This includes time in Allende’s Chile in 1972. Spending twelve years in Indigenous communities in North and South America, he worked for locally-managed co-operatives there. Bill now volunteers in Mutual Aid organizations stateside and is happy to maintain links with América Latina through the UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México).

Violence as Chile marks right-winger Pinera's two years in power

Issued on: 12/03/2020

A demonstrator with a placard that reads "Get out Pinera"

 takes part in a protest against Chile's government in Santiago,

 Chile, March 11, 2020. © Cristobal Saavedra Voguel, REUTERS

Text by:NEWS WIRES

Students clashed with riot police in Chile's capital Santiago during protests that marked the second anniversary of conservative President Sebastian Pinera taking office on Wednesday.

The protests coincided with the 30th anniversary of Chile's return to democracy after Augusto Pinochet's 1973-1990 dictatorship.

During a ceremony in Santiago, Pinera said that 30 years of democratic rule in Chile had been a "fertile" period that dragged eight million Chileans out of poverty.

But he also recognized shortcomings and inequalities that hurt "the soul of our nation."

"We have not sufficiently taken into account the fears and shortcomings of our middle class. We have not progressed strongly enough towards full equality between men and women. We have not fought with sufficient will against the abuses and the privileges of others," said Pinera.

Fueled by outrage at Pinera and the Chilean elite that controls most of the country's wealth, the South American nation has seen since October its worst social unrest since the transition to democracy in 1990.

Thirty people have been killed in the protests, many as a result of a heavy-handed police response condemned as repressive by UN investigators. Thousands have been wounded.

The main aim of the continuing protests is to pressure Pinera to expand social reforms he has already proposed.

The most serious of Wednesday's disturbances occurred outside the landmark National Institute school in the center of Santiago, just a few blocks from the presidential palace, where police fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse stone-throwing students.

The demonstration gained momentum through the afternoon, when other protesters joined the students.

"Before, we protested in Plaza Italia, and now we are here," said Rodrigo Lagos, a teacher, referring to the square where most of the protests have begun.

"If (Pinera) doesn't leave the easy way, he's going to have to leave the hard way," added the 46-year-old.

The clashes disrupted traffic through the center of Santiago for several hours.

Similar incidents took place elsewhere in the capital, as demonstrators responded to social media appeals to protest against Pinera.

Several metro stations were shut because of the violence, and some transport routes to the south of the city were suspended.

(AFP)

Students protest as Chile marks 30 years of democracy
The Chilean government celebrated 30 years of democracy in the country. Students, however, staged massive protests to call out the president’s response to income inequality.


As Chile celebrated three decades of democracy on Wednesday, students across the national capital ramped up protests against President Sebastian Pinera over income inequality in the country.

"We must combat violence and care for our democracy," said Pinera, in a speech at the presidential palace. "Democracy is never guaranteed."

Read more: Chile president under fire over gender violence remarks

Chile has seen a series of mass protests against inequality since October last year, when the government attempted to raise metro fares. Pinera has been under fire for the strong police response to these protests, including a liberal use of tear gas.

Students have taken an active part in these civil disobedience protests, even blocking public transportation by sitting with their legs dangling over the lines at multiple metro stations. One of the top trending topics on Twitter in Chile has been #FueraPinera or "Pinera Out."

Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet handed over power to Patricio Aylwin on March 11, 1990, which marked the country's return to democracy after Pinochet came to power in 1973. Numerous cases of government excesses — including torture and killings — were reported during this period.

Brutal beating by Chilean police caught on CCTV

Multiple cases of police brutality have been reported during protests against Pinera, who has been in office for two years. Many opposition legislators chose to boycott the celebratory event at the presidential palace in light of the authorities' response to protesters.

Pinera addressed the protests during his speech, as he talked about the "many problems that have caused great pain to the soul of our nation and that undoubtedly require the commitment and contribution of all Chileans."

see/rc (Reuters, dpa)

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New clashes between protesters and police in Chile

Date 12.03.2020
Related Subjects Chile
Keywords Chile, protests, income inequality, student protests

Progressive Gabriel Boric elected president of Chile, vows unity and democracy

By UPI Staff

President-elect Gabriel Boric speaks to supporters in Santiago, Chile, on Sunday. 

Photo by Elvis Gonzalez/EPA-EFE

Dec. 20 (UPI) -- Chile has elected its youngest president in modern history -- a 35-year-old former student activist who has promised to lead a progressive charge away from decades of rule by dictator Augusto Pinochet and conservative Sebastian Pinera.

Gabriel Boric was declared the winner of the presidential runoff election on Sunday, winning about 56% of the vote over far-right lawmaker Jose Antonio Kast. He will be sworn in on March 11.

Kast won the first round of voting last month by 2 percentage points.

Boric has vowed to unite Chile, tackle poverty and inequality and fight elitism.

"I know that the future of our country will be at stake next year," he said according to The Guardian.

"I will be a president who will take care of democracy and not jeopardize it, a president who listens more than he speaks, who seeks unity, who looks after people's daily needs, and who fights hard against the privileges of the few and who works every day for Chilean families."

Boric also pledged to fight the climate crisis and block a proposed mining project in the world's largest copper-producing nation. He also called for an end to Chile's private pension system.

Boric will succeed Pinera, who in 2018 became the first conservative leader to be elected since the controversial Pinochet left office in 1990.

Leftist millennial vows to remake Chile after historic win

By PATRICIA LUNA and JOSHUA GOODMAN

1 of 19

Chile's President elect Gabriel Boric, of the "I approve Dignity" coalition, celebrates his victory in the presidential run-off election in Santiago, Chile, Sunday, Dec. 19, 2021.

 (AP Photo/Luis Hidalgo)


SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Former leftist student leader Gabriel Boric will be under quick pressure from his youthful supporters to fulfill his promises to remake Chile after the millennial politician scored a historic victory in the country’s presidential runoff election.

Boric spent months traversing Chile, vowing to bring a youth-led inclusive government to attack nagging poverty and inequality that he said are the unacceptable underbelly of a free market model imposed decades ago by the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

The bold promise paid off. With 56% of the votes, Boric on Sunday handily defeated his opponent, far right lawmaker José Antonio Kast, and at age 35 was elected Chile’s youngest modern president.

Amid a crush of supporters in downtown Santiago, Boric vaulted atop a metal barricade to reach the stage where he used the indigenous Mapuche language to initiate a victory speech to thousands of mostly young supporters.

“We are a generation that emerged in public life demanding our rights be respected as rights and not treated like consumer goods or a business,” Boric said. “We know there continues to be justice for the rich, and justice for the poor, and we no longer will permit that the poor keep paying the price of Chile’s inequality.”

In his speech, the bearded, bespectacled president-elect highlighted the progressive positions that launched his improbable campaign, including a promise to fight climate change by blocking a proposed mining project in the world’s largest copper producing nation.

He also called for an end to Chile’s private pension system — the hallmark of the neoliberal economic model imposed by Pinochet.

It’s an ambitious agenda made more challenging by a gridlocked congress and ideological divisions recalling the ghosts of Chile’s past that came to the fore during the bruising campaign.

Kast, who has a history of defending Chile’s past military dictatorship, finished ahead of Boric by two percentage points in the first round of voting last month. But his attempt to portray his rival as a puppet of his Communist Party allies who would upend Latin America’s most stable, advanced economy fell flat in the head-to-head runoff

Still, in a model of democratic civility that broke from the polarizing rhetoric of the campaign, Kast immediately conceded defeat, tweeting a photo of himself on the phone congratulating his opponent on his “grand triumph.” He then later traveled personally to Boric’s campaign headquarters to meet with his rival.

And outgoing President Sebastian Pinera, a conservative billionaire, held a video conference with Boric to offer his government’s full support during the three-month transition. That will follow a runoff that saw 1.2 million more Chileans cast ballots than in the first round and raise turnout to nearly 56%, the highest since voting stopped being mandatory in 2012.

“It’s impossible not to be impressed by the historic turnout, the willingness of Kast to concede and congratulate his opponent even before final results were in, and the generous words of President Pinera,” said Cynthia Arnson, head of the Latin America program at the Wilson Center in Washington. “Chilean democracy won today, for sure.”

In Santiago’s subway, where a fare hike in 2019 triggered a wave of nationwide protests that exposed the shortcomings of Chile’s free market model, young supporters of Boric waved flags emblazoned with the candidate’s name while jumping and shouting as they headed downtown for his victory speech.

“This is a historic day,” said Boris Soto, a teacher. “We’ve defeated not only fascism, and the right wing, but also fear.”

Boric will become Chile’s youngest modern president when he takes office in March and only the second millennial to lead in Latin America, after El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele. Only one other head of state, Giacomo Simoncini of the city-state San Marino in Europe, is younger.

The new government is likely to be closely watched throughout Latin America, where Chile has long been a harbinger of regional trends.

It was the first country in Latin America to break with U.S. dominance during the Cold War and pursue socialism with the election of Salvador Allende in 1970. It then reversed course a few years later when Pinochet’s coup ushered in a period of right-wing military rule that quickly launched a free market experiment throughout the region.

Boric’s goal is to introduce a European-style social democracy that would expand economic and political rights to attack nagging inequality without veering toward the authoritarianism embraced by so much of the left in Latin America, from Cuba to Venezuela. It’s a task made more urgent by the coronavirus pandemic, which sped up the reversal of a decade of economic gains.

Boric was able to prevail by expanding beyond his base in the capital, Santiago, and attracting voters in rural areas. For example, in the northern region of Antofagasta, where he finished third in the first round of voting, he trounced Kast by almost 20 points.

Also key to his victory were Chilean women, a key voting bloc who feared that a Kast victory would roll back years of steady gains. Kast, 55, a devout Roman Catholic and father of nine, has a long record of attacking Chile’s LGBTQ community and advocating more restrictive abortion laws.

Boric, in his victory speech, promised that Chile’s women will be “protagonists” in a government that seeks to “leave behind once and for all the patriarchal inheritance of our society.”

___

Joshua Goodman reported from Miami.

Gabriel Boric vows to ‘fight privileges of the few’ as Chile’s premier

Leftist former student has vowed to unite country and tackle poverty and inequality



01:40 Leftwing millennial to be Chile's new president – video


John Bartlett in Santiago and Sam Jones
Mon 20 Dec 2021

Gabriel Boric has vowed to unite Chile, fight “the privileges of the few” and tackle poverty and inequality after winning a decisive victory over his far-right opponent to become the South American country’s youngest premier.

The 35-year-old leftist former student leader won 56% of the vote in Sunday’s second-round presidential election, cruising past his ultra-conservative opponent, José Antonio Kast, who took 44.2%.

The president-elect, who will be sworn in on 11 March, said the time had come for a radical overhaul of Chilean society and its economy.

“Men and women of Chile, I accept this mandate humbly and with a tremendous sense of responsibility because we are standing on the shoulders of giants,” he said in front of a vast crowd packed into a Santiago boulevard.

“I know that the future of our country will be at stake next year. That is why I want to promise you that I will be a president who will take care of democracy and not jeopardise it, a president who listens more than he speaks, who seeks unity, who looks after people’s daily needs, and who fights hard against the privileges of the few and who works every day for Chilean families.”

Boric said his generation wanted to have its rights respected and not be treated “like consumer goods or a business”, adding the country would no longer allow Chile’s poor to “keep paying the price” of inequality.

He added: “The times ahead will not be easy … Only with social cohesion, re-finding ourselves and sharing common ground will we be able to advance towards truly sustainable development – which reaches every Chilean.”

The new premier said he would be “the president of all Chileans … and serve everyone”.

Boric also highlighted the progressive positions that launched his improbable campaign, including a promise to fight the climate crisis by blocking a proposed mining project in what is the world’s largest copper-producing nation.

He also called for an end to Chile’s private pension system – the hallmark of the neoliberal economic model imposed by Gen Augusto Pinochet.

Boric thanked each candidate in turn – including Kast – and reinforced his commitment to Chile’s constitutional process, a key consideration for many as the country embarks upon this latest chapter in a turbulent period of transition.

The new administration is likely to be closely watched throughout Latin America, where Chile has long been a harbinger of regional trends.

It was the first country in South or Central America to break with US dominance during the cold war and pursue socialism with the election of Salvador Allende in 1970. It then reversed course three years later when Pinochet’s coup ushered in a period of rightwing military rule that quickly launched a free market experiment throughout the region.

Kast won the first round vote on 21 November by two percentage points, but Boric was able to prevail on Sunday by expanding beyond his base in Santiago and attracting voters in rural areas. In the northern region of Antofagasta, where he finished third in the first round of voting, Boric trounced Kast by almost 20 points.

Ghosts and old divisions returned to haunt the bitterly fought campaign, during which Kast – who has a history of defending the military dictatorship – sought unsuccessfully to caricature his rival as a puppet of his Communist party allies who would upend Latin America’s most stable, advanced economy.

However, Kast proved unexpectedly magnanimous in defeat. After tweeting a photo of himself congratulating his opponent on his “grand triumph”, he visited Boric’s campaign headquarters to see the new president. Kast, a father of nine, also said: “Gabriel Boric can count on us.”

Chile’s outgoing president, the conservative billionaire Sebastián Piñera, held a video conference with Boric to offer his government’s full support during the three-month transition.

In Santiago’s subway, where a fare rise in 2019 triggered a wave of nationwide protests that exposed the shortcomings of Chile’s free market model, young supporters of Boric waved flags emblazoned with the candidate’s name while jumping and shouting as they headed downtown for his victory speech.

“This is a historic day,” said Boris Soto, a teacher. “We’ve defeated not only fascism, and the right wing, but also fear.”

On a sweltering day in Chile, voting was marred by public transport difficulties across the country, although the government claimed it had done everything in its power to guarantee voters could reach polling stations.

Turnout for the vote – in which 1.2 million more people cast their ballots than in the first round – was nearly 56%, the highest level since voting ceased to be mandatory nine years ago.

Boric will become Chile’s youngest modern president when he takes office, and only the second millennial to lead in Latin America, after El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele. Only one other head of state, Giacomo Simoncini of the city-state San Marino in Europe, is younger.

“It’s impossible not to be impressed by the historic turnout, the willingness of Kast to concede and congratulate his opponent even before final results were in, and the generous words of President Piñera,” said Cynthia Arnson, the head of the Latin America programme at the Wilson Center in Washington.

“Chilean democracy won today, for sure.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report

Who is Gabriel Boric? The radical student leader who will be Chile’s next president

Boric comes from a cohort that is grimly determined to bury dictator Augusto Pinochet’s bitter legacy once and for all

Gabriel Boric reacts before giving a speech to his supporters 

after the presidential runoff election in Santiago, Chile 

Photograph: Marcelo Hernández/Getty Images

John Bartlett in Santiago
Mon 20 Dec 2021 

Four months ago, 35-year-old Gabriel Boric confounded the polls to claim victory in a presidential primary he had barely been old enough to compete in. But on 11 March next year, he will now be sworn in as Chile’s youngest ever president – having amassed more votes than any presidential candidate in history.

Boric is the driving force behind Chile’s abrupt changing of the guard. He belongs to a radical generation of student leaders who are grimly determined to bury dictator Augusto Pinochet’s bitter legacy once and for all.

“Chile was the birthplace of neoliberalism, and it shall also be its grave!” he shouted from a stage the night of his primary win, his forearm tattoo peeking out from beneath a rolled-up sleeve.

General Pinochet’s brutal dictatorship bestowed Chile with its extreme economic model, and Boric and his influential cohort of student leaders have taken it upon themselves to dispose of it.

“I know that history doesn’t begin with us,” he declared on stage on Sunday night as president-elect before a baying crowd.

“I feel like an inheritor of the long trajectory of those who, from different places, have tirelessly sought social justice.

Boric was born in Punta Arenas in 1986 and is fiercely proud of his home region, Magallanes, below the Patagonian ice fields.

In 2011, as he entered the final year of his law degree, Boric became a leader of education protests across the country, in which thousands of students took over their campuses and faculties across a long, cold winter, spilling out into the streets to demand free, high-quality education for all.

The protests were quelled with a modest compromise, allowing some students to study for free. Several of the movement’s young leaders later ran for office and joined the country’s congress or took up positions in local government.

Boric never completed his degree, instead winning election to Chile’s congress in 2013 and serving two terms as a deputy, becoming one of the first congresspeople to come from beyond Chile’s two traditional coalitions in the process.

But since narrowly losing the presidential first round to José Antonio Kast, a far-right supporter of General Pinochet, he has moderated his programme markedly, appealing to the centrist voters who have now propelled him into La Moneda.

Unlike his firebrand days at the front of the marches, Boric is now neatly groomed, humble and serious – while he often wears a smart blazer covering his tattoos. His girlfriend Irina Karamanos joined him on stage on Sunday night after the results.

He has pledged to decentralise Chile, implement a welfare state, increase public spending and include women, non-binary Chileans and Indigenous peoples like never before. But it is Boric’s ultimate goal of extricating the country from the binds of Pinochet’s dictatorship that will define his legacy.

The next four years will see this process begin, as the 2011 student generation led by Boric, take on an even more important role than before.

Chilean election offers stark choice: 

a leftist or an admirer of Pinochet

The campaign has resurfaced deep divisions and revived bitter memories of the country’s recent past

Gabriel Boric told supporters ‘we will come together again to defeat Pinochetismo.’ Photograph: Rodrigo Garrido/Reuters


John Bartlett in Santiago
Sun 19 Dec 2021 

Chilean voters headed to the polls on Sunday to chose between two presidential candidates offering starkly contrasting visions for the future, in the country’s most divisive elections since it returned to democracy in 1990.

Leftwing candidate Gabriel Boric, a tattooed former student protest leader, has pledged to empower women and Indigenous people and raise taxes and spending in order to create a fairer Chile.

His far-right opponent José Antonio Kast is a staunch defender of the former dictator Augusto Pinochet and has promised to dig ditches along the country’s northern border to slow migrants.

After years of centrist rule, the sharp choice has resurfaced deep divisions in one of Latin America’s most stable democracies, and revived bitter memories of the country’s recent past.

Conservative Chileans are convinced that Boric is a crypto-Communist who would push Chile into a Venezuelan-style economic tailspin. Progressives fear that Kast would overturn fragile social gains and clash with the mostly progressive convention that is rewriting the country’s dictatorship-era constitution.

Both candidates claim that it is their rival who instils fear among voters.


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“This Sunday we are going to say ‘no’ to intolerant people,” said Kast – who frequently rails against the supposed influence of the “gay lobby” – at his final campaign rally on Thursday. “We will defeat fear… We will win by a wide margin because this is what I have been hearing the length of Chile.”

Across town, Boric told his supporters: “We are a generation that learns from those who were here before us; we united to defeat the dictatorship, to democratise Chile, [and] to have a new constitution. And now we will come together again to defeat the heir to this government and Pinochetismo – and bring hope to Chile.”

“I’m putting my faith in young people,” said Boric voter Cecilia Galaz, 67, as she strode into her polling station in a central neighbourhood in the capital, Santiago.

“We are handing over a corrupt, self-centred world, so we need to change absolutely everything if we are to keep advancing towards the sort of society we want to live in.”

Close by, 37-year-old Fernanda Medina walked out of the polling station having also cast her vote in favour of Boric.

“I’m really excited,” she said brightly, clasping her young daughter’s hand.

“But I fear that disinformation is powerful in rural Chile, and some people are inclined to vote in line with the emotions Kast plays on rather than inform themselves of the candidates’ policies.”

In rural parts of the country, as well as peripheral districts of Santiago, some voters complained of a lack of public transport to take them to polling stations.

Videos circulating on social media showed long lines at bus stops – in bright sunshine and temperatures rising above 30C (86F) – as well as depots full of parked buses.

Transport minister Gloria Hutt gave a televised address to “categorically deny” that the government was holding back the buses. She also said that public transport was running “somewhat better” than on a working day.

Some Chileans have begun offering carpool solutions to neighbours in the hope of allowing everyone the chance to vote.

Acknowledging that the election will be won with the votes of those in the centre, both candidates moderated their platforms in the weeks since the first round.

Kast is backed by the right-leaning candidates whom he defeated in the first round, while Boric has has support from across the left, from the Communist party to moderate former president Michelle Bachelet, who this week said Chileans faced a “fundamental” choice, urging them to back a leader who could lead the country “down the path of progress for all”.

Kast’s policies resonated with voters unnerved by two years of social protests and recent debates about abortion (which remains illegal in most instances) and migration.

But his relationship with Chile’s past has loomed darkly over his campaign.

Kast, whose Germany-born father was recently revealed to have been a member of the Nazi party, has previously said that Pinochet would have voted for him and campaigned prominently against the transition to democracy in the late 1980s.

Boric, on the other hand, represents the progressive generation brought up in democracy – many of whom harbour a visceral hatred of General Pinochet and his enduring legacy.

A reminder of that history came on Thursday when the death of the dictator’s widow, Lucia Hiriart, brought hundreds of people to a Santiago plaza – some of them bearing photos of victims of the military regime.

“This has unexpectedly turned into one of the most closely-fought elections,” Mireya García told Reuters.

García’s brother was one of thousands forcibly disappeared after the army toppled the democratically elected president Salvador Allende in 1973.

“What is at stake is that on the one hand the extreme right is clearly a danger for Chile and on the other hand, there is a candidate who represents the youth,” she said.