SANTIAGO, Chile (Dispatches) — A leftist millennial who rose to prominence during anti-government protests was elected Chile’s next president Sunday after a bruising campaign against a free-market firebrand likened to Donald Trump.
With 56% of the votes, Gabriel Boric handily defeated by more than 10 points lawmaker José Antonio Kast, who tried unsuccessfully to scare voters that his inexperienced opponent would become a puppet of his allies in Chile’s Communist Party and upend the country’s vaunted record as Latin America’s most stable, advanced economy.
Outgoing President Sebastian Pinera — a conservative billionaire — held a video conference with Boric to offer his government’s full support during the three month transition.
Amid a crush of supporters, Boric vaulted atop a metal barricade to reach the stage where he initiated in the indigenous Mapuche language a rousing victory speech to thousands of mostly young supporters.
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 what is the world’s largest copper producing nation.
He also promised to end Chile’s private pension system — the hallmark of the neoliberal economic model imposed by the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
“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.”
“This is a historic day,” said Boris Soto, a teacher. “We’ve defeated not only fascism, and the right wing, but also fear.”
At 35, Boric will become Chile’s youngest modern president when he takes office in March and only the second millennial to lead in Latin America, after El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele. Only one other head of state, Giacomo Simoncini of the city-state San Marino in Europe, is younger.
His government is likely to be closely watched throughout Latin America, where Chile has long been a harbinger of regional trends.
It was the first country in Latin America to break with the U.S. dominance during the Cold War and pursue socialism with the election of Salvador Allende in 1970. It then reversed course a few years later when Pinochet’s coup ushered in a period of right-wing military rule that quickly launched a free market experiment throughout the region.
Leaders in Latin America rallied to congratulate Boric, with President Alberto Fernández of Argentina pledging to “strengthen ties” with the new Chilean government to combat “inequality” that plagues the region.
Argentinean vice president Fernández de Kirchner had earlier sent her congratulations to Boric and asserted that “the people always come back”.
Bolivian President Luis Arce also hailed the historic victory, saying it represented “the triumph of the Chilean people” and the “strengthening of Latin American democracy”.
“Latin American democracy is strengthened based on unity, respect and, above all, the will of our peoples,” Arce wrote in a Twitter post.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro characterized the victory an “overwhelming victory over fascism”.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel reaffirmed his country’s will to “expand bilateral relations and cooperation” between the two peoples and governments.
Peruvian President Pedro Castillo and Uruguay’s President Luis Lacalle Pou also rushed to congratulate the Chilean president-elect.
“The victory you have achieved is that of the Chilean people and the Latin American people who want to live with freedom, peace, justice and dignity share it,” Peru’s Castillo said in a message.
Congratulations also poured in from other leaders across Latin America, including Brazil’s ex-president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, as well as right-wing presidents Ivan Duque of Colombia and Guillermo Lasso of Ecuador.
Tens of thousands of Chileans took to the streets of the capital and other cities after Kast admitted the defeat, honking car horns in approval, brandishing pro-Boric placards, and shouting: “Viva Chile!”