SANTIAGO: :Former leftist student leader Gabriel Boric will be under pressure from his youthful supporters to fulfill his promises to remake Chile after the millennial politician scored a historic victory in the country’s presidential runoff election. At 35, Boric will be the nation’s youngest leader and by far its most liberal since President Salvador Allende, who died by suicide during the 1973 coup.
Boric spent months traversing up and down Chile vowing to bring a youth-led form of inclusive government to attack poverty and inequality that he said are the unacceptable underbelly of a free market model imposed decades ago by the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. The bold promise paid off. With 56% of the votes, Boric on Sunday handily defeated his opponent, far-right lawmaker Jose Antonio Kast, by more than 10 points. Amid a crush of supporters in downtown Santiago, Boric gave a rousing victory speech.
“We are a generation that emerged in public life demanding our rights be respected as rights and not treated like consumer goods... We know there continues to be justice for the rich, and justice for the poor, and we no longer will permit that the poor keep paying the price of Chile’s inequality.”
He also highlighted the progressive positions that launched his improbable campaign, including a promise to fight climate change by blocking a proposed mining project in what is the world’s largest copper producing nation. His ambitious goal is to introduce a European-style social democracy that would expand economic and political rights to attack inequalityRead More