Chile abandons the centre in watershed presidential election

Whatever its outcome, Sunday’s election marks a watershed moment in Chile’s modern history.

For the first time since the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet ended in 1990, the country's next president will not come from either the centre-left or centre-right blocs, whose stewardship of the Andean nation has made it a regional byword for political stability. With the traditional ruling class pushed aside in November's first round of voting, Chileans now face a choice in a presidential run-off between a young progressive backed by the Communist Party and a vocal defender of the bloody Pinochet dictatorship. It has made for the most polarised election since the return of democracy.

The favourite to end the three-decade-old centrist duopoly is leftist candidate Gabriel Boric. Final polls showed the 35-year-old former student leader holding a small but narrowing lead over his 55-year-old ultra-conservative rival José Antonio Kast. Although from very different political positions, both candidates personify public dissatisfaction with the country's centrist political model.

Despite delivering decades of economic and social gains that are the envy of the rest of South America, this model broke down spectacularly in October 2019 when a small hike in fares on public transport set off a popular uprising.

CDU members choose Merkel rival Friedrich Merz as new leader

---

At least 27 people feared dead in fire at clinic in Japan

---

New world order: How the Covid-19 pandemic changed Europe

---

Britain reports record 93,045 daily Covid-19 cases

---

Embodying a generational changing of the guard, Boric promises to meet the demands of the protesters by using the power of the state to better distribute the economic gains of recent decades, which have nevertheless failed to make much of a dent in Chile’s high levels of income inequality. He has also made a raft of promises to speed up liberalising reforms in favour of women and minority groups.

Although most of Boric's policies would qualify him as a social democrat in Europe, Kast's campaign has tried to portray his rival as a Trojan horse for radicals who would turn Chile into another Venezuela. By presenting himself as the law-and-order candidate, he has captured the support of those horrified by the violence and disorder that accompanied the 2019 protests, as well as those conservatives unhappy with concessions made in recent years by traditional centre-right leaders to the demands of a rapidly liberalising society.

Moving to the centre

Boric has responded to Kast’s attempts to paint him as the candidate of disorder by accelerating his long march away from the hard-left policies he espoused when breaking onto the national scene a decade ago, to get closer to the centre ground. In doing so, he has won the endorsement of former presidents from the traditional centre-left Concertación bloc. Kast has joked in election debates that Boric should really be debating his former radical self.

But behind in the polls, Kast is also trying to alter voter perceptions, attempting to soften his far-right image ahead of the second round.

Recently he has been noticeably more reticent in defending the legacy of Pinochet, whose widow died on Thursday aged 99, leading to small, spontaneous celebrations breaking out in the capital Santiago. A vocal critic of abortion and gay rights, Kast has also rowed back on some of his traditionalist social positions, ditching a promise to transform the women’s ministry into one for families. But fears over his authoritarian tendencies have been stoked by his campaign’s insinuation this week that it might not accept defeat on Sunday night and might take the contest to the courts.

Pollsters say the key to the result will be turnout. Three-quarters of Chile’s 15 million registered voters did not vote for either Kast or Boric in the first round, with more than half not bothering to show up at all. With voting not compulsory in Chile, pollsters are uncertain if the polarised nature of the race will boost turnout and which candidate this might favour.

Historically the right-wing candidate performs better than polling predicts, but it is unclear if Kast’s extremist image is turning off more traditional conservative voters, or if they are just unwilling to tell pollsters they will vote for the far-right’s first real chance of taking power since Pinochet was ousted.

It is also unclear how fears over Omicron might impact on the race by keeping older voters, who favour Kast, away from voting booths.