The member for the left will face the populist José Antonio Kast in the second round of the presidential election on December 19, in Chile. Nothing let it imagine that it was up to this 35-year-old elected to be the last rampart against the extreme right.
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At two points of the extreme right, arriving at the top of the first round of the presidential election (27.9% of the vote), on November 21, the Gabriel Boric (left) camp knows that the road for the palace of The Moneda, Santiago, December 19, will be difficult. “We are the best way to a more just country”, however, has haspped the Chilean deputy, elected since 2014, in front of his supporters, at the head of a vast coalition from the Communist Party to the Sensitivities of Left Center.
Five months ago, nothing allowed to imagine that this young 35-year-old candidate – the legal age to compete in the presidency of the country – would play the role of last rampart against the return of the far right, incarnated By the former member José Antonio Kast, a 55-year-old lawyer of nine children, already candidate for the 2017 election, when he had been credited with nearly 8% of the vote.
In July, Gabriel Boric creates the first surprise to the primary election of the left: he prevails over the Favorite candidate, a communist mayor of the north of the capital. The previous year, checkered shirts with rolling sleeves revealing his tattoos, he declared during a television interview: “I do not have the experience, I still have a lot to learn.” This sentence and his youth him have been repeated many times. “The collective conditions [have since] been constructed,” he retorted in October 2021 to a television facilitator that pushed him in his entrenchments.
“A young idealist”
During the campaign, Gabriel Boric was attacked on the economic component of his program and the projections of tax increase – in order to finance the social rights claimed by the street in 2019, with a health, an education and universal retreats -, deemed demented by its detractors.
“say” I have no experience “, it is necessary for a president, because it is a sign of humility, but it also reveals its lack of support, decrypts Kenneth Bunker, Politist and Director of the Tresquintos Consulting Cabinet. Gabriel Boric is a young idealistic who has a great sense of adversity: from the south of the country, he managed to win in Santiago, where does all the Chilean elite come from. “
It was in Punta Arenas, where the Earth of Chile moves between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans that the candidate spent his childhood, in a social democrat family where political discussions invited table. “Our parents worked a lot, we grew up between our uncles and grandparents, in a warm climate, I think it forged its sense of the collective, describes Simon Boric, 33, one of his two cadet brothers. It is a thoughtful person, measured, without great material ambitions, faithful to his group of friends, good advice. “
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