Chile veers Left: Boric promises a remake

Santiago: Former leftist student leader Gabriel Boric will be under quick pressure from his youthful supporters to fulfill his promises to remake Chile after the millennial politician scored a historic victory in the country’s presidential runoff election. And he already is under pressure from wary investors, who sent Chile’s stocks tumbling by more than 6% on Monday while the value of its peso fell sharply against the dollar.

Boric spent months traversing Chile, vowing to bring a youth-led inclusive government to attack nagging poverty and inequality that he said are the unacceptable underbelly of a free market model imposed decades ago by the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. The bold promise paid off. With 56% of the votes, Boric on Sunday handily defeated his opponent, far right lawmaker José Antonio Kast, and at age 35 was elected Chile’s youngest modern president.

Amid a crush of supporters in downtown Santiago, Boric vaulted atop a metal barricade to reach the stage where he used the indigenous Mapuche language to initiate a victory speech to thousands of mostly young supporters.

“We are a generation that emerged in public life demanding our rights be respected as rights and not treated like consumer goods or a business,” Boric said. “We know there continues to be justice for the rich, and justice for the poor, and we no longer will permit that the poor keep paying the price of Chile’s inequality.” In his speech, the bearded, bespectacled president-elect highlighted the progressive positions that launched his improbable campaign, including a promise to fight climate change by blocking a proposed mining project in the world’s largest copper producing nation.

He also called for an end to Chile’s private pension system — the hallmark of the neoliberal economic model imposed by Pinochet. Chile’s main stock market index slid by more than 6% Monday while the peso fell against the dollar.

Economists said Boric will have to propel economic growth and investment to finance promised social spending. “If the capacity for growth is not stimulated, you could have a high level of social discontent over the lack of opportunities,” said Juan Bravo, an economic analyst at the Diego Portales University. —(AP)