Leftist Gabriel Boric to become Chile's youngest president

In Chile, Gabriel Boric,35 years old former student leader and Leftist will become country's youngest President after he won a presidential runoff election. According to the Electoral Service of Chile, out of  99.95% of ballots counted, Boric won with 55.87% of the vote, securing victory over his right-wing opponent, Jose Antonio Kast. A native of Punta Arenas, in Chile’s far south, Boric as a student led the Federation of Students at the University of Chile in Santiago. He rose to prominence leading protests in 2011 demanding improved and cheaper education. By 2014, still in his 20s, he had joined the National Congress as a lower-house legislator, representing Chile’s vast and sparsely populated southernmost region of Magallanes. Boric will be sworn in as President on March 11.

These elections have been one of the most polarised in Chile’s history and there have been several socio-political and economic factors that have contributed to it. The elections were preceded by the nationwide protests that started in 2019 as massive riots in the capital Santiago, in response to the rise in the city’s subway fare, which later spread across the country and grew to include anger towards rising inequality, privatisation and increasing cost of living. Chile survived the brutal 16-year military dictatorship of the US-backed right-wing Augusto Pinochet, between 1973-1990, during whose regime the country witnessed suppression, violence and brutality.