Chile’s Polarized Election
Chile’s presidential election campaign enters its final days as voters prepare to choose between two men with radically different visions for their country.
On Sunday, voters will decide between Gabriel Boric, a 35-year-old two-term Congressman who began his political career as a student protest leader and José Antonio Kast, a former Congressman whose style and far-right ideology has drawn comparisons to Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
Boric has had to fight off attacks from the right that his sympathies lie too far to the left, especially since his nomination was initially backed by the local Communist Party. His campaign has sought to quell fears that he is a retread of leftist leaders in Venezuela and Cuba, attempting to assure the electorate that he is more social democrat than socialist.
The two men rose to the runoff after a contested first round in November. Then, Kast came first, with almost 28 percent of the vote, and Boric came close behind with almost 26 percent. Since then, polls have mostly indicated a majority in Boric’s favor, as the left-leaning leader has sought to moderate his stances to broaden his appeal. Kast’s efforts to do the same appear to have borne fruit, with both men neck-and-neck in a poll released on Thursday.
As well as both candidates presenting revamped political programs, the campaign has raised other surprises, including the news that Kast’s father, who emigrated to Chile from Germany after World War II, was a card-carrying Nazi.
An uphill task awaits whoever wins on Sunday, Claudia Heiss, the head of political science at the University of Chile, told Foreign Policy. “I think they both will have a very hard time. First of all, because there’s a tight Congress that will lead any government, left or right, to immobilism,” Heiss said. “And second, whoever wins will receive a very damaged economy, and the unpleasant task of reducing public spending because Chile for the last year spent like crazy.”
Heiss said a Boric victory would smooth the transition to a new constitution, currently under consideration by a sympathetic Constitutional Assembly. However he could soon have to play bad cop, Heiss said, if his proposed tax increases fail to pay for a planned expansion of Chile’s welfare state.
Despite Kast’s Trumpian warning, without evidence, of impending electoral fraud, Chile’s professional electoral commission is expected to deliver preliminary results by 9 p.m. local time on Sunday.