By Alejandra Garcia on December 21, 2021
On Sunday night, a few minutes after the victory of leftist Gabriel Boric was declared, the center of Santiago de Chile and other important cities of the southern country was filled with people honking horns and waving Chilean flags. The long-suffering nation, battered by the fascist legacy of Augusto Pinochet, took to the streets to celebrate a long-awaited victory.
In 2019 and 2020, Plaza Baquedano – renamed Dignity Square – was the scene of the bloodiest social struggles experienced by the country since the years of the dictatorship. The government of outgoing President Sebastián Piñera sent the national police (Carabineros) to contain the social outburst at whatever cost, and the square was filled with people injured and murdered due to police brutality.
Two years later, Dignity Square became the center of celebrations as thousands of people sang chants and carried banners with the image of former president Salvador Allende. “The people united will never be defeated,” that classic Chilean protest song by the band Quilapayún, was heard in one voice as the Santiago residents celebrated Boric’s sweeping and uncontested victory, which left several historic milestones.
The candidate won the greatest number of votes for a president and will become the youngest in the country’s history, a reflection of the political change demanded by Chileans since 2019. His rival, the right-wing José Antonio Kast, acknowledged defeat as soon as Boric began to gain an advantage during the counting of the ballots. Leading up to the election the polls had the two candidates running neck to neck but in the end Boric crushed Kast by over 10% reflecting the will of the Chilean people to make a clean break from its repressive past.
Another twist is that the Communist Party representative will be the first president who is not part of the country’s two major political forces (center-left and center-right). He is also the first candidate who has won a run-off election after failing in the first round, in which Kast prevailed.
“Boric was four years old when Pinochet handed over power to a civilian government. And that is why he looks forward, without the military ballast. He is part of the generation that grew up ‘without fear’. Chile has also turned its back on the dictatorship’s memory and Kast’s discourse of order and security to look towards a better future,” journalist Federico Rivas reported in the Spanish newspaper El Pais.
After the highest voter turnout since the 2013 presidential election, Boric represents a generation of young politicians who promise to move towards a state of welfare for all with a strong social agenda from what was the darling of the neo liberal projects in Latin America.
“We will advance with responsibility in structural changes without leaving anyone behind. We will grow economically, transform what for many are consumer goods into social rights regardless of their wallet size, and guarantee a peaceful and safe life for Chileans,” Boric said during his first speech as the country’s leader.
His government program includes increasing taxes on big business and the richest oligarchs, ending the current pension system, and transforming the health care system, which are the main demands of the outburst from 2019.
Boric, unlike Kast, supported the call for the new Constitution, which seeks to sweep away the remnants of Pinochet. His transforming agenda is in tune with the feeling of Chileans who, after the outbreak and the pandemic, demanded greater social rights.
The Boric can only be viewed as very encouraging and longed-for months are hopefully on the horizon for the Chilean people. The struggle of the people murdered, injured, and raped by Carabineros was not in vain. Days of change are finally coming but Chilean people must remain vigilant to ensure these new ideas and programs are indeed implemented.
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano – English