DECEMBER 20, 2021
COMMENTARY
President-elect Gabriel Boric must now find the right formula to engage skeptics while also maintaining support from the radical elements of his alliance.
Gabriel Boric, a thirty-five-year-old leftist congressman, will become the youngest president in Chile’s history after obtaining 56 percent of the vote in Sunday’s runoff election against fifty-five-year-old far-right former congressman Jose Antonio Kast. The result surprised many observers, who expected a closer race.
Boric now faces the challenge of unifying a country that, after decades of political stability, was thrown into uncertainty after massive protests in 2019 against political elites and discontent with growing inequality and inadequate public services. He must craft and implement a new national vision after the majority of voters expressed the wish to move away from Chile’s free-market economic model. He also must steer the country through the period of the constituent assembly, which began in response to..
