Chileans go to the polls this Sunday (19) with the feeling that anything can happen.
The latest official poll released by a respected institute, Cadem, showed leftist Gabriel Boric leading the presidential race with a five percentage point advantage — 40% of voting intentions, against 35% of far-right José Antonio Kast. And more: 25% said they were undecided.
In the last week of the dispute, it is prohibited to publish polls, although the parties continue to order surveys from specialized companies. Some of them are leaked via social networks, especially via WhatsApp, a platform on which unreliable numbers are also disseminated, without clear sources.
The result is noise and confusion among supporters. “I saw that we are turning around and we are already ahead by 3 points,” said Sol Balvanera, 32, who was at the end of Kast’s campaign.
When asked where she got the number, the supporter of the ultra-rightist candidate was unable to answer. “It will be a wash,” said trader Miguel del Román, 42, a Boric voter, saying that he had received a poll from a co-worker that gave the leftist a 7-point advantage.
If, in the past, surveys were already making a lot of mistakes in Chile, now, with disinformation boosted through social networks, the confusion about what could happen is even greater.
The latest Cadem survey shows that Boric grew more than Kast, absorbing an important part of the votes that, in the first round, went to the center-leftist Yasna Provoste and to the liberal rightist Franco Parisi. Kast, on the other hand, according to the same poll, increased his support mainly with the support of voters from Sebastián Sichel, a candidate from the government and the traditional right.
What increases the climate of uncertainty is the specter of abstention. Voting in Chile is not mandatory, and the country comes from a string of elections with a very low level of turnout. In the first round, only 47% of voters went to the polls, with Kast getting 27.9% of the vote, against 25.8% for Boric.
“Both candidates made an effort to convince people to vote, but what should count most are the converted votes, that is, those that went to other candidates in the first round and will now go to one of the two. It is difficult for the universe of voters increase much more,” says analyst Cristóbal Bellolio.
In recent weeks, Boric has had to apologize for his past criticisms of politicians in the Concertación, the center-left alliance that ruled Chile for 20 years after the end of the dictatorship (1973-1990). In a letter, he stated: “I know that youthful arrogance is a bad counselor, that there is no virtue in just being young and young, and that a political project must be judged by its convictions and principles.”
Repentance, apparently, was accepted. Boric was supported by former presidents Ricardo Lagos (2000-2006) and Michelle Bachelet (2006-2010 and 2014-2018). They also declared themselves in favor of his candidacy for Christian Democracy, which, in Chile, integrates the center-left, and the socialists.
Kast, on the other hand, was supported by formations of the Chile Vamos government alliance, including the traditional Independent Democratic Union, the moderates of the National Renewal and the liberal-right Evopoli.
Sichel, who won 12.7% of the votes in the first round, sold his support dearly, making it conditional on a list of requirements, such as respect for human rights and giving up on two campaign promises. One of them is to try to repeal the abortion law that allows the termination of pregnancy in cases of rape, fetus inviability and risk of the mother’s death. Another is to eliminate the Ministry of Women. Kast gave in and even called renowned women, such as Undersecretary of Health Paula Daza and former presidential candidate Evelyn Matthei, to be part of his team, previously composed almost exclusively of men.
At the age of 35, Boric emerged in Chilean politics at the student protests of 2011. Born in Punta Arenas, Chilean Patagonia, he has a law degree and was twice elected deputy. It defends a reform in the social security system, giving more space to the State in the areas of health and education. It is also in favor of free public higher education.
He advocates the legalization of abortion and the cultivation of marijuana, although he does not favor a broader drug legalization policy. He fought for the approval of equal marriage, recently made law in the country, and he is in favor of a bigger and more participative state. To increase revenue, it wants to implement a tax on large fortunes.
At 55, Kast is an old acquaintance of the Chilean right, having served as a member of parliament for 16 years, representing the Independent Democratic Union. In 2017, he was a candidate for president, winning 8% of the vote. Since then, it has intensified the anti-communist and anti-illegal immigration discourse.
His platform is conservative in customs, and he advocates a tougher security policy and the militarization of the south of the country, where indigenous Mapuche rights groups are in continual confrontation with landowners. The ultra-rightist support base is made up of voters who say they are tired of so much social instability. Therefore, Kast promises economic stability and greater containment of protests, which have been intense in the country since 2019.
Kast claims to be an admirer of the dictator Augusto Pinochet and voted for the continuation of the military regime in the 1988 referendum. Son of German immigrants, one of his brothers was a minister during the military regime.
His father was an officer in the German army and a supporter of Nazism. Kast, however, claims that his father only served in the armed forces, but that he did not share Nazi ideas. A document obtained by the Associated Press news agency, however, contradicts this version. Records in the German Federal Archives show that Michael Kast joined the Nazi Party in 1942 at age 18. Although military conscription was compulsory, as the son maintains, party affiliation was voluntary.
Thus, it is clear that Kast and Boric are candidates with very distant profiles, and Chile, in ferment since 2019, when protests broke out across the country, will choose between polarized proposals. In a fierce dispute, without reliable numbers in the last week of the presidential race, a high number of undecided people and the expectation of, once again, low attendance, anything can happen.
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