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Chilean President-elect Gabriel Boric
CHILEANS elected left leader Gabriel Boric their youngest ever president yesterday — and with the highest number of votes of any president in the country’s history.
Hundreds of thousands thronged the streets of Santiago celebrating as the 35-year-old, who rose to prominence as a leader of the mammoth protests against neoliberalism that swept Chile from 2019, was declared the emphatic winner of a tense run-off against far-right candidate Jose Antonio Kast.
Mr Boric won 56 per cent of the votes as the candidate of Apruebo Dignidad (Approve Dignity), a union of left forces including the Communist Party of Chile, the Commons, Democratic Revolution, Social Convergence and others.
Far-right forces are rising across Latin America and the Caribbean, armed with a common agenda of anti-communism, the culture war, and neoliberal economics, writes VIJAY PRASHAD
Communist Party presidential candidate JEANNETTE JARA challenges the Chilean left to stop talking only among comrades and reach out to angry voters abandoned by politics in the race against the far right this November
For the first time in years, the dominant voice within Chile’s official left comes not from neoliberal centrists but from the world of labour, writes LEONEL POBLETE CODUTTI