Gabriels Borič, a left-wing former student protest leader, won the second round of the presidential election in Chile on Sunday, according to preliminary results.
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Boric, 35, received almost 56% of the vote, while his rival, ultra-conservative politician Jose Antonio Cast, received 44%.
To celebrate Boric’s victory, tens of thousands of Chileans took to the city streets with posters supporting Boric, saying, “Long live Chile!”
In his pre-election campaign, Boric promised to build a welfare state by raising taxes and social spending.
However, he also undertook to act fiscally responsibly.
The 55-year-old Cast is known as a supporter of the former right-wing military dictator Alberto Pinochet. “If Pinochet was still alive, he would vote for me,” Cast said during the election campaign.
Two years ago, protests broke out in Chile against low wages and pensions, a weak health and education system, and growing inequality.
Protests escalated into tears, killing dozens of people.
Chile’s presidential election continues the recent tendency for voters to reject the traditional big parties responsible for decades of neoliberal policies, which are believed to owe Chile’s relative prosperity, but also high social inequality.
Boric and Cast are both from small parties that have not been represented in the government or in the coalitions that have been in power for 31 years since the end of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship.
In the first round of elections, which took place on November 21 and had seven candidates, Cast won 28% and Boric 26%.
The winner of the election on March 11 will replace the current head of state Sebastian Pinier. The term of office of the President is four years, but it is forbidden to run for a second consecutive term.
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