SANTIAGO, Dec 20 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Leftist candidate Gabriel Boric has won Chile’s presidential election after an early concession from his far-right rival, José Antonio Kast.
Kast conceded defeat barely an hour and a half after polls closed, and with around half of ballots counted.
With most of the votes counted, Boric won with 56% and Kast trailed with 44% of the votes.
The election has been one of the most polarised in recent decades and comes after mass anti-government protests.
Both candidates offered starkly different visions for the country, and both are outsiders representing political parties that have never been in government.
At 35-years-old, Boric will become one of the world’s youngest political leaders, and the youngest president in Chile’s history.
In a phone call with outgoing President Sebastián Piñera, which was publicly broadcasted, Boric said he would do his “best to rise to this tremendous challenge”.
A former student protest leader, he backed the mass demonstrations against inequality and alleged corruption that rocked Chile in 2019 and 2020.
Once the most stable economy in Latin America, Chile has one of the world’s largest income gaps, with one percent of the population owning 25% of the country’s wealth, according to the United Nations.
Boric has promised to address this inequality by reforming Chile’s pension and healthcare systems, reducing the work week from 45 to 40 hours, and boosting green investment.
His rival, meanwhile, stood on a platform of law and order, pledging cuts to tax and social spending, and defending the legacy of former military dictator General Augusto Pinochet.
In a tweet, Kast said he had called Boric to congratulate him on his “great triumph”.
“From today he is the elected President of Chile and deserves all our respect and constructive collaboration,” he added.
The country is going through huge changes after voting overwhelmingly last year to re-write Chile’s Pinochet-era constitution.
Piñera said that Chile was living in “an environment of excessive polarization, confrontation [and] disputes,” and urged his successor to “be the president of all Chileans.” — NNN-AGENCIES
