Chileans elected Gabriel Boric as their next president on Sunday. Boric is a socialist millennial who rose to prominence as a student leader during anti-government rallies in 2019 and 2020. José Antonio Kast, Boric's ultra-conservative opponent, conceded defeat approximately 90 minutes after polls closed, with Boric leading him by a larger-than-expected 12 percentage points, according to preliminary data. Boric will be the youngest leader in modern Chilean history and the second-youngest leader in the Western hemisphere, after Giacomo Simoncini of San Marino.
In a publicly recorded video conversation, outgoing President Sebastian Pinera, a conservative billionaire, praised Boric and vowed his government's support throughout the three-month transition period. Boric pledged to do his "best to rise to this tremendous challenge."
Boric campaigned on a platform of combating climate change and economic inequality, reducing the workweek to 40 hours from 45, and transforming Chile's health care and private pension systems — holdovers from Gen. Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship — into more European-style social democratic models, all "without veering toward the authoritarianism embraced by so much of the left in Latin America, from Cuba to Venezuela," according to The Associated Press.
Chileans just voted to repeal Pinochet's constitution, and the late Pinochet loomed over the controversial election. Pinochet gained control of Chile in a 1973 coup and reigned until 1990. Kast, whose older brother was a prominent adviser to Pinochet, defended the former dictator responsible for the deaths or disappearances of over 3,000 individuals. During that campaign, Kast's German emigrant father was also revealed to be a card-carrying member of Adolf Hitler's Nazi party.
However, Kast's swift concession and tweet applauding Borck on his "great triumph" were described by the Associated Press as "a model of democratic civility that broke from the polarizing rhetoric of the campaign" Kast then " traveled personally to Boric's campaign headquarters to meet with his rival."
Turnout was 56 percent, the highest level since mandatory voting was abolished in 2012, and 1.2 million more voters cast ballots Sunday than in the first round that established the Boric-Kast battle. "It's impossible not to be impressed by the historic turnout, the willingness of Kast to concede and congratulate his opponent even before final results were in, and the generous words of President Pinera," said Cynthia Arnson, director of the Wilson Center's Latin America program in Washington. "Chilean democracy won today, for sure."
