Chile Elections 2021: What should Kast and Boric do to win the presidency of Chile?

Each vote counts to reach the La Moneda palace. Since it became known that the leftist candidate Gabriel Boric and the right-wing Jose Antonio Kast they will dispute the Chilean presidency In the second round of December 19, the struggle for the support of political parties, personalities from different sectors and elusive voters has not lost intensity. Nor has uncertainty diminished.

READ ALSO: Kast or Boric ?: What the first polls say in Chile ahead of the second round

It is not just any choice. For the first time since the end of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, the two candidates facing each other for the presidential seat are not part of the two large traditional coalitions. In addition, they represent fundamentally opposite views, which has led various sectors to consider them radical candidates.

Less than three weeks before the ballot, Boric, 35, who represents a coalition of the leftist Frente Amplio and the Communist Party, leads the polls.

Although Kast, 55, a representative of the far-right Republican Party, won the first round with 27.9% of the vote compared to Boric’s 25.8%, the first polls facing the ballot indicate that the leftist candidate has higher backups.

José Antonio Kast, a radical right candidate, managed to obtain 27.91% support in the Chilean presidential elections.

According to the study by Pulso Ciudadano, released by channel 13, 40.4% of those consulted gave their support to Boric, while 24.5% to Kast. Meanwhile, the newspaper El Mercurio published a survey carried out by the firm Black and White in which Boric obtained 44% of the support while Kast 41%.

Javier Sajuria, Chilean academic, professor of Political Science at Queen Mary University of London and director of the Espacio Público foundation, sees a clear change in the last week with respect to the day of the first round, when José Antonio Kast had managed to project an image “much more winner and convener than Gabriel Boric”.

“During the week that has been changing. Boric has been building support and has managed to set the agenda, while Kast has been somewhat complicated by the misogynistic, racist and class statements that some people in his party made in the past. Kast’s campaign has lost its triumphant tone of election day. Now we find a Boric who has managed to rise in the polls and a José Antonio Kast who went to the United States and who raises the questions of why he left and why he is not campaigning in the country”, He tells El Comercio.

Chilean political analyst Patricio Navia also considers that Boric has been gaining an advantage over Kast in this stretch of the campaign, but highlights that “there is a lot of competition and things can change”.

Gabriel Boric is first in the polls for the second round.

Among the variables at stake for the second round are the votes of the liberal candidate Franco Parisi, who ran his entire campaign from the United States and achieved a surprising third place in the first round. His close to 870,000 votes make up an important electoral capital that Boric and Kast are fighting to captivate.

In addition, surveys indicate that the number of undecided for the second round is around 15.6%, while the people who say they will abstain from voting in the ballot reach up to 16%.

Ongoing strategies

For the experts it is clear that in the race to capture more votes, both Boric and Kast have the challenge of moderating their speeches and seeking to convince those who did not vote for them in the first round. At least for now, Boric has privileged territorial deployment while Kast chose to travel to the United States.

In Boric’s case, Sajuria considers that the leftist candidate has expanded his speech, although not necessarily moderating it. “He has reaffirmed proposals that resonate very well with the most anti-establishment electorate and has also been accompanied by well-known personalities in the more moderate and centrist world. In visual terms, he has started wearing a suit. There is an obvious strategy of trying to broaden your audience in a way that you hadn’t done in the first round.”, He points out.

For Navia, while early in the race, particularly on the night of the first round, Kast spoke much more to moderate voters, in the following week, Boric has made more clear and direct gestures toward more centrist voters. “At the start of the race it seemed that Kast was starting with the advantage, but now it seems that Boric is taking more advantage”, he says.

The supporters of the Chilean presidential candidate José Antonio Kast react after the partial results of the first round of the presidential elections, in Santiago, Chile, on November 21, 2021. (REUTERS / Pablo Sanhueza). (PABLO SANHUEZA /)

About Boric, highlights that “has added more forcefully to technocrats and political leaders more of the center, including many technocrats who were part of the governments of the concertation, while Kast has not managed to do it with the same efficiency, so Boric is reaching with more force towards the center of what Kast has been able to do”.

Kast, for his part, has insisted on the idea that he is going to make adjustments to his program, but has not revealed any concrete proposals on what that means. This Tuesday, Sebastián Sichel, the center-right candidate who almost tied with Parisi, presented nine conditions he had in order to support Kast, including respect for human rights or recognizing that climate change is generated by people.

“The response from Kast’s command was negative. There was not that spirit more convincing or to moderate a speech that is ultra-right. I don’t know if his strategy considered showing a more moderate discourse, but if so, it seems that it is not working much ”, considers Sajuria.

In contrast, Navia finds that list had an aggressive tone. “It implies that Kast is nothing short of a fascist and that he has to give proof of being a Democrat to receive Sichel’s support. It seems to me that it was a bit excessive and that it will generate unnecessary noise in the Kast sector because now people will say ‘Kast is indeed a far-right fascist because Sichel asked him to stop being to support him’. I don’t know if Sichel is doing him a favor or is actually doing more harm to Kast”, He says.

Supporters of the candidate for the Broad Front, Gabriel Boric, have shown their support. (EFE / Alberto Valdés). (Alberto Valdés /)

Huge challenges

Among the supports that could be key for the candidates are the votes that went to Parisi in the first round. While it was not confirmed that Kast will meet with Parisi during his trip to the United States, the mere rumor of that appointment made headlines.

“There is an interesting question about what Parisi’s ability to pass votes is. A poll indicated that 40% of those who voted for Parisi have decided to vote for Boric in the second round, versus 17% who would vote for Kast. I wonder how much effect a meeting with Parisi would have and in exchange for what, that is, what proposals from the Parisi program would Kast be willing to take into account, because unlike Boric, who has spoken directly about proposals from the Parisi program that I would like to support, there has not been that same dialogue on the part of Kast”, Dice Sajuria.

For her part, Navia believes that a meeting with Parisi could be a big blow in favor of Kast, but also a big blow against him, if he does not get that meeting or if he meets with some leaders of the Republican Party who they are harder on the right. “If you end up touring to meet far-right politicians in the United States, that will make it more difficult for you to move towards the center.”, He says.

The winner of the elections will succeed Sebastián Piñera. (Photo: AFP) (CLAUDIO REYES MARTIN BERNETTI /)

For both analysts, the strategy that Boric and Kast should adopt is similar. It is about abandoning its more radical policies and moving more decisively towards more moderate positions.

“It is simple to say, but difficult to do. Both have to move towards more moderate positions, they have to become more pragmatic and more center because 45% of the voters whose candidate did not go to the second round are actually towards the center of Kast and Boric. To attract those voters they have to move further to the center. So far, Boric is pushing harder toward the center than Kast has been able to do.”Says Navia.

Sajuria asks not to forget that Chile has a serious problem of participation in the elections, so it is difficult for a significant percentage of people who did not vote in the first round to do so in the second round.

“In Chile it is difficult to mobilize people to vote, it would seem unsustainable for candidates to try to make their strategy only by mobilizing new voters, it is easier to convince people who have already voted to change their option. That is where the path of candidacies should go”, He concludes.

• Mauricio Leal: the famous stylist and his mother die in strange circumstances in Colombia; this is what is known
• The nightmare of the school that won the draw for the presidential plane of Mexico
• He arrived at the hospital with a fever, fatigue and flu, they gave him two years to live and 13 years later he lives to tell the tale
• To try to save his son, who is unlikely to live, a father develops a laboratory at home
• Lifeless body of renowned model Christy Giles was thrown in front of a Los Angeles hospital
• “Who gets vaccinated, wins”: Austrian public television raffles cars and houses to promote vaccination against coronavirus

.