The comfortable election of former student leader Gabriel Boric as Chile's new president is a landmark moment for the country and South America. It brings to power the country's most radical political leader since Salvador Allende, whose death in the 1973 military coup ushered in 15 years of brutal dictatorship under General Augusto Pinochet. The 35-year-old Boric won the largest majority ever recorded in a Chilean election.
The polarised and acrimonious campaign saw echoes of those days in the candidacy of defeated far-right candidate, José Antonio Kast, seen by some as a clone of Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro, and a brother of a former adviser to Pinochet. He had spoken favourably of aspects of that dictatorship and backed hardline security measures.
Boric faces a congress evenly divided between left and right and may struggle to pass elements of his radical programme, particularly the tax rises on the rich
The country, led for the last two decades by the centre-left and centre-right, and which has been wracked since 2019 by mass popular protests, has also embraced major reform of its economic model rooted in the extreme neoliberalism of the Pinochet years. In government, Boric promises to implement many of the demands of the protesters: higher taxes, shifting from a private pension system to a public one, better public services, creating a care system that would relieve the burden on women, a greener and more inclusive society, and commitment to the rights of the historically marginalised indigenous people.
Most importantly he has pledged to see through the reform of its dictatorship-era constitution, a process strongly endorsed last year by some 78 per cent of voters.
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Although the strong majority for a new constitution is reflected in the constituent assembly, Boric faces a congress evenly divided between left and right and may struggle to pass elements of his radical programme, particularly the tax rises on the rich. Expectations are high that he will be able to rebalance Chile’s deeply inequal society, but investors are nervous, capital is flowing out of the country, and the overheated economy will cool down fast next year. It will be a difficult balancing act.