(Santiago de Chile) Chile elects its new president on Sunday, two years after an unprecedented social uprising against social inequalities and in the process of drafting a new Constitution.
For these particularly indecisive elections, the outgoing conservative president Sebastián Piñera was the first person to vote in a school in Las Condes, a wealthy district of Santiago.
“All opinions matter. Come and vote ”,“ We are able to resolve our differences peacefully, let’s vote, ”urged the head of state, who after two terms (2010-2014, re-elected in 2017), cannot stand for re-election.
The two favorites in the latest polls, credited with around a quarter of the voting intentions, lie at the extremes of the political landscape, and outside the right-wing and center-left coalitions that have ruled the country since the end of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).
On the one hand, Gabriel Boric, 35, former student leader and candidate for the left-wing coalition “Apruebo dignidad” which includes the Communists in particular; on the other, José Antonio Kast, a 55-year-old lawyer and leader of the far-right Republican Party, which is riding the unpopularity of the outgoing government.
“The main thing (is that) a lot of people can go to the polls and that everyone can express themselves freely,” said the latter after voting in Paine, 37 km south of Santiago.
“May hope prevail over fear,” said Gabriel Boric, voting in his hometown of Punta Arenas, in the far south of the country.
“We represent the process of change and transformation that is happening,” he added, proposing a change in the neoliberal development model of the country.
Some 15 million voters – out of a population of 19 million – are called to the polls to decide between seven candidates for the presidency, to renew the entire Chamber of Deputies, half of the Senate, as well as the regional councils. Polling stations will close at 6 p.m. local time.
Just behind the two favorites stand two former ministers, the Christian Democrat (center left) Yasna Provoste, 51, and the liberal on the right, Sebastian Sichel, 44.
“Those who have never been favorites now appear to be favorites,” notes AFP Raul Elgueta, political scientist at the University of Santiago. “These are the last elections of the old cycle and they could have a different outcome from what we have had” so far, adds the academic.
With 50% undecided, a non-compulsory vote and an increase in COVID-19 cases, this is the most uncertain scenario since the return to democracy.
Another unknown, the participation of young people, strongly mobilized in the street since the uprising at the end of 2019 for more social justice, but who regularly express their little interest in the candidates’ proposals.
Opposing programs
This particularly open ballot comes two years after an unprecedented social crisis in the South American country to demand a more just society.
Mr. Boric’s program aims to move towards a welfare state model and to guarantee social rights. He proposes to “build a State which guarantees rights, which guarantees dignity and equality, it is the only way to have social stability”, he declared at the end of his campaign on Thursday.
For his part, Mr. Kast tries to maintain the neoliberal model inherited from the dictatorship of Pinochet and promises to impose “order, security and freedom”, after two years of social revolt following the demonstrations which broke out in October 2019.
“Two models of society clash. The one we represent, of freedom and justice, and […] a country we do not want and which would fall into chaos, hunger and violence, ”declared José Antonio Kast, at the end of his campaign, alongside his wife and eight of his nine children.
Another uncertainty, the Constitution which will emerge from the work started in June by the Constituent Assembly. The text, which could review the prerogatives of the president and parliament, will be submitted to Chileans by referendum during the coming term.
Whatever it is, “whoever is elected president will face a difficult period,” predicts Claudia Heiss, professor of political science at the University of Chile, stressing the risks of “social conflict” when the aid that has made it possible to support the economy during the pandemic will end.