Chronicle Editor
Antofagasta, Chile — Chile’s next president will be in power during an historic period of constitutional transition, but opposition in Congress is expected to hinder Gabriel Boric’s ambitious, social-democratic agenda when he takes office next year.
Boric, a 35-year-old left-wing congressman and former student movement leader, was elected on Sunday after defeating far-right candidate Jose Antonio Kast by more than 11 percentage points.
Voter turnout, especially high among women and young Chileans, was greater than in any election since mandatory voting was scrapped in the South American nation in 2012 — and when he officially takes up the presidency in March, Boric will be Chile’s youngest-ever president.
Boric’s broad socio-democratic and openly feminist platform, which promised a pension system overhaul, universal public health, progressive tax reform, and a focus on human rights and combating climate change.
He was also the only candidate with consequential proposals to decentralise governance and to shift towards a more sustainable development model, said Matias Garreton, a researcher with the Centre for Social Conflict and Cohesion Studies and professor at the Adolfo Ibanez University in Santiago.
Young people are clear on the need to transform the country’s development model, he said. “And I think it is one of the reasons behind Boric’s meteoric rise, going in one year from not even being a contender to being Chile’s youngest president-elect ever,” Garreton told Al Jazeera.
When Boric takes office on March 11, he will also be the first Chilean president not to hail from the Santiago or Valparaiso regions in central Chile. The president-elect is from Punta Arenas, 2 180km (1 355 miles) by air south of Santiago, the capital.
Rising to prominence as a student movement leader during mass protests 10 years ago, he was first elected to the Chamber of Deputies of Chile’s bicameral Congress in 2013 and re-elected in 2017. — Reuters
Online Reporter