Ex-protester, far-right lawmaker to meet in Chilean runoff
ABC News
A conservative lawmaker with a history of defending Chile’s military dictatorship and a former student protest leader are headed to a polarizing presidential runoff after failing to garner enough votes to win the country’s election outright
SANTIAGO, Chile -- A conservative lawmaker with a history of defending Chile’s military dictatorship and a former student protest leader were headed to a polarizing presidential runoff after both failed to garner enough votes to win the South American country’s election outright.
José Antonio Kast finished Sunday’s presidential election first with 28% of the vote compared to 26% for Gabriel Boric following a bruising campaign that laid bare deep social tensions in the region’s most economically advanced country.
In a speech to supporters late Sunday, Kast doubled down on his far right rhetoric, framing the Dec. 19 runoff as a choice between “communism and liberty.” He blasted Boric as a puppet of Chile’s Communist Party — a member of the broad coalition supporting his candidacy — who would pardon “terrorists,” be soft on crime and promote instability in a country that has recently been wracked by protests laying bare deep social divisions.
“We don’t want to go down the path of Venezuela and Cuba,” Kast, speaking from a lectern draped with a Chilean flag, told supporters in the capital. “We want a developed country, which is what we were aiming to become until we were stopped brutally by violence and the pandemic.”