Former student leader and left-wing deputy Gabriel Boric It is clear to him: Chile It will only be able to overcome socioeconomic inequality and heal the wounds of the social upheavals of 2019 with a stronger State and better basic services.
A staunch critic of the neoliberal model installed during the military dictatorship (1973-1990) and later consolidated in the transition, he wants to build a welfare state similar to European democracies, with an environmentalist, feminist and regionalist accent.
“If Chile was the cradle of neoliberalism in Latin America, it will also be its grave,” the candidate of the leftist bloc Approve Dignity, made up of the Broad Front and the Communist Party, tends to say at his rallies.
Winks to the center-left
Since he was second in the first round of November 21 with 25.8% of the votes, just 2 points behind the far-right José Antonio Kast, Boric has been moderating his speech to put the central electorate in the pocket and scare away the fear that generates in the business spheres its alliance with the communists.
For years he denied the legacy of the Concertación -the coalition of Christian Democrats and socialists that ruled Chile for three decades after the end of the dictatorship-, especially when he was at the head of the powerful Federation of Students of the University of Chile (FECH) and during his first years as a deputy in Parliament.
But Boric has been winking at the traditional center-left for weeks, to the point that he has won the support of former presidents Ricardo Lagos and Michelle Bachelet.
“I have never said that these 30 years were lost. I believe that every generation has the right and the duty to critically analyze what our predecessors did in order to precisely learn from that, “he said last Monday in the last presidential debate. “Divisions do not allow progress in social justice,” he added.
Economically, the deputy is in favor of a new pension system to replace the current one, individually funded and inherited from the dictatorship, and proposes an ambitious tax reform that includes greater burdens on the super-rich and mining companies.
His initial goal was to raise 8% of GDP, but now he is ambitious for 5% in four years and has included fiscal consolidation in his program.
“We have proposed to move forward with great responsibility, because all permanent expenses have to be financed by permanent income, therefore one of our commitments is that we are going to advance step by step,” he said in a face-to-face meeting with Kast.
He also wants to create a National Development Bank, forgive university credits, reduce the working day to 40 hours a week and create a universal health fund.
Strong in the capital
Born in southern Punta Arenas in 1986, Boric has come under attack for his age and inexperience outside of politics and, if he wins next Sunday, he would be the youngest president in Chilean history.
His closest circle comes from his time as a student leader: his right hand is also deputy Giorgio Jackson, with whom he first came to Parliament in 2014 and founded the Broad Front three years later.
In the final stretch of the campaign, he joined his team with Dr. Izkia Siches, who became very popular during the pandemic as president of the Medical College, which many experts see as a success.
Its main bastion is the capital and Buenos Aires Valparaíso, while its weak points are the northern and southern regions, where Kast won by a landslide thanks mainly to a harsh discourse against violence, order and migration.
Aware of this, it has reinforced its agenda on public security and promises to increase the police force in the most dangerous neighborhoods and to restore some tranquility to the “ground zero” of the social outbreak, the Plaza Italia, where weekly groups of hooded people continue to demonstrate and, in occasions, generating disorders.
“The law has to be complied with and it cannot be permanent disorders on Fridays,” he indicated in the debate.
The more traditional right calls him “extreme left” and often repeatedly criticizes the meeting he held in 2018 with Ricardo Palma Salamanca, convicted of the murder of former conservative senator Jaime Guzmán, ideologue of the current Constitution.
Boric has apologized for this – “When I’m wrong, I am capable of correcting and asking for forgiveness” – as he has also done with a young woman who accused him of macho attitudes years ago, an episode spurred on by Kast’s followers and who has generated some discomfort in the final stretch of the campaign.
“I want to denounce the unscrupulous and violent exploitation of the right wing, they have used my story for instrumental and petty purposes,” the young woman recently declared.
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