a second round between the radical left and the extreme right

A second round more polarized than ever. Chilean voters are called on Sunday, December 19 to elect their president from among two candidates with diametrically opposed social projects. It is the most antagonistic ballot that Chile has ever seen since the return to democracy in 1990.

>> Presidential election in Chile: three questions on Sunday’s election, dominated by extremes

Gabriel Boric, MP since 2014 who leads a left coalition with the Communist Party, presents himself as the candidate for change and the political heir of the 2019 movement for more social justice in the most unequal country of the OECD. Aged 35, the minimum age to run, the former leader of a student movement in 2011 was not expected in the final sprint just a few months ago.

Facing him, José Antonio Kast, leader of the far-right party that he himself created, is today benefiting from the rejection inspired by the current conservative president Sebastian Piñera who ends his second term in indifference (2010 -2014 then since 2018).

Antonio Kast won the first round on November 21 with 27.9% of the vote, ahead of his opponent from the radical left (25.8%). The 55-year-old lawyer’s ultraliberal economic agenda proposes to further cut state spending and lower corporate taxes to create jobs.

Quite the opposite of Gabriel Boric’s program, which intends to launch a major tax reform to involve the richest in the country – including the 1% holding 26.5% of the wealth, according to a UN agency – in his redistributive program of better access to health, education, and the creation of a new pension system, now entirely private.

The outcome of this undecided ballot (the latest polls published outside the country where they are banned give the two contenders neck and neck) will be dictated by the capture of votes from the center and the mobilization of abstainers from the 1st round (53% ). Some 15 of the 19 million Chileans are called to the polls.