“It is our future that is at stake”, Chilean youth present at the polls yearn for changes in their country

“It is our future that is at stake,” publicist Constanza Vargas told AFP while standing in a long line at a polling station in Santiago in the framework of the general elections. His argument is that of thousands of young people: “A change” in Chile after two years of political turmoil.

At 32, Vargas recognizes that he is used to voting but calls on the youth to go to the polls in search of “a change” to the neoliberal model inherited from the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), which Although it has provided economic and political stability to the country in the last 31 years, it has exacerbated social inequality.

She is part of the first generation of young people who lived entirely in democracy and together with hundreds of thousands of people, in October 2019, they promoted the greater social protests since the return to full institutionality.

“We are the future,” remarks Vargas, one of the 15 million citizens – out of a population of 19 million – called to the polls this Sunday to elect the successor to the current president, Sebastián Piñera.

There are seven candidates, including two favorites according to the questioned polls -which by law have not been published for 15 days-: leftist MP and former student leader Gabriel Boric (35 years old), which is for the alliance I Approve Dignity, and the far-right José Antonio Kast (55), for the Republican Party.

Television campaign marks the beginning of the final stage of the presidential elections in Chile

Voting for purposes

In the endless lines and enduring the heat waiting to vote in a populous neighborhood of the capital, Felipe Rojas, a student from 24 years, categorically declares to AFP: “You have to vote.”

Chile established in 2012 the voluntary vote, which lowered the electoral participation to less than 50%.

“The country needs changes; we are bored of the same politicians “he says angrily at the delay and disorganization.

Carla Fuenzalida, 19-year-old student, complains about the same meters further in the crowded ranks from that place, where caps, hats, umbrellas and umbrellas abounded to avoid the sun.

“We are queuing for more than an hour, this is not right, we want to vote, enough of this Chile”, It indicates to the AFP.

From the street to the polls

In a residential neighborhood of Santiago, the art director Pedro Tórtora (35 years old) explains to AFP that the youth who participated in the social protests since October 2019 must now validate that social revolution with their vote.

“Changes are not only made on the street but also at the polls. That is why it is very important, not only that young people vote, but that all the population vote to be able to make the real change ”, alleges Tórtora. (I)