Neither Kast nor Boric: a Chile caught between two “extremes”

They fear the far-right candidate so much Jose Antonio Kast as the leftist Gabriel Boric. Looking ahead to the ballot this Sunday, a good part of the voters chilean feels trapped between two “extremes”, A void that pushes them to vote blank or null.

“No one represents me, because they are extreme and I feel that today for the reality of the country is not what we need,” says Johana Ugarte, a 48-year-old insurance agent who decided to vote null.

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In the first round of November 21, in which Kast prevailed with 27.9% of the votes compared to Boric’s 25.8%, Ugarte voted for “one more center option.” But now she claims to feel “orphan” of candidates.

Representative of the I Approve Dignity coalition, which brings together the Broad Front and the Communist Party, Congressman Gabriel Boric promises a change in the economic model, which a part of society blames for the deep inequalities in the country.

At 35, the minimum age to run for president, the leftist candidate advocates a stronger state and guaranteed social rights after decades of orthodox liberalism.

To do this, Boric proposes a tax reform that includes increasing the tax burden on the richest and ending the private pension system, among other transformations.

Conservative-minded Kast, opposed to abortion and marriage equality, seeks to maintain the system. His plan is to restore “peace and order,” which, he says, Chile lost after the protests that erupted in October 2019, so that the country can grow again, and thus be able to implement social programs.

Boric is accused of being a “communist”, while Kast is branded a “fascist”, a dialectic that has polarized a campaign clouded by the cross accusations.

“De Kast scares me when he hits the table to try to solve the violence with more violence, while I feel that Boric is a very young person and that he lacks political maturity, and that he will end up being a simple spokesperson and not a ruler ”, adds Ugarte, who lives in Peñalolén, a commune in the southeast of Santiago in which the most affluent and the most impoverished sectors hardly mix.

A latest survey by the Brazilian consulting firm AtlasIntel, conducted between December 14 and 16 among 2,218 people, revealed a technical tie, with 48.4% for Boric and 48.5% for Kast, and a margin of error of 2 %.

“No candidate”

Like Ugarte, several personalities have publicly declared their vote invalid. One of the last to recognize this option was José De Gregorio, former minister of the government of the socialist Ricardo Lagos and former president of the Central Bank.

“I’m going to cancel. Despite the pressure that I have from all sides, I think it is the most honest thing, “he told local media, explaining that he makes that decision even though he does not” care who governs. “

“Both have potentials, but the truth is that neither of them I like,” he added.

Ernesto Ottone, a sociologist and former Lagos presidential adviser (2000-2006), will not vote. He traveled to Paris but before he declared himself “without a candidate.”

“I am a person from the democratic left, what could be called a social democrat, therefore, a reformist, I feel very well placed when a center-left alliance works, and that situation does not exist,” he told AFP.

Kast, he adds, “is a man of the extreme right. Boric represents a radical and populist left ”. He is particularly concerned about his alliance with the Communist Party, which in Chile “It continues to have a doctrine that is not democratic.”

Boric’s is “simply a government program, a governance project that it seems to me is not going to strengthen democracy,” he added.

One half that does not participate

Both candidates have moderated their speech in the run-up to the second round in search of voters from the center and those who in recent years decided to abstain, a phenomenon that worsened after the establishment of voluntary voting in 2012.

“In Chile A situation has been normalized that should be worrying for any democratic system, in the last elections half the country did not participate ”, explains to AFP Marcelo Mella, an analyst at the University of Santiago.

In the first round, participation reached 47%.

“A broad sector of the country has the perception that democratic institutions and the democratic system do not solve problems in time,” added Mella, explaining that abstentionism occurs mainly in sectors of the middle class and popular.

“I don’t believe Kast. He is a tough person and I do not share his ideals of life because he is very conservative; But Boric scares me a little and it doesn’t convince him that he is so social democrat now when he has always been involved in very extreme things, ”says Magdalena Morales, a 32-year-old bank worker who assures that on Sunday she will vote null.

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Deshawn