Leftist Boric became president-elect of Chile

“I am going to bet firmly to meet again as a country, to achieve the agreements we need to advance in a more just way,” said Gabriel Boric at the end of the last debate on television before the presidential ballot on Sunday in which he became the new President of Chile.

In a rhetoric that promised death to neoliberalism in Chile when he won the primaries of his left coalition, the young legislator moderated his speech and his proposals to conquer the undecided voters of the center, who were the key to his victory.

Boric achieved 54% of the votes with 50% of the tables scrutinizeds, achieving a comfortable victory over the ultra-conservative José Antonio Kast, who had led the first round.

At just 35 years old, the graduate -although not graduated- in Law from the University of Chile becomes the youngest elected president of the world’s largest copper producer.

Despite the fact that Boric has previously been criticized in his own sector for his more dialoguing position, the political forces of the center to the left aligned with him to prevent an eventual coming to power of Kast.

A rain of memes and intentionally doctored photos invaded social networks after the first round with various slogans of support such as #mascotasxBoric or #miopesxBoric.

For the campaign, the young man left behind his old image with disheveled hair and thick beard that identified him from his time as president of the Federation of Students of the University of Chile.

However, he had resistance from more conservative sectors due to his alliance with the Communist Party, despite the fact that Boric has said that he is “one more” of his coalition. Others highlighted his lack of experience that led him to make mistakes with figures and projections.

At the time, he was even harshly criticized by his allies for integrating and signing the “Agreement for Social Peace and the New Constitution”, adopted in November 2019 after the outbreak and which gave way to the process of rewriting the Constitution, currently in progress. process.

A native of Punta Arenas, in the extreme south of Chile, he was one of the leaders of the student protests that broke out in 2011 during the first government of Sebastián Piñera demanding improvements in the quality of education and progress towards free education.

Its adherents are largely young people who want to change the neoliberal economic system inherited from the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, which led the country to be a model of development in the face of its impoverished neighbors in Latin America but which also generated deep social inequalities.

But the road will not be easy considering that Congress will be very divided, which would require big agreements to pass important reforms.

“The possibility of dialoguing with those who think differently is not the exclusive preserve of any political sector,” he told a local newspaper in the middle of the year.

For his part, José Antonio Kast acknowledged his defeat this Sunday.