Chile elections 2021: Gabriel Boric says his generation enters politics with “clean hands”

“We are new generations who enter politics with clean hands, a warm heart but a cool head,” said the leftist candidate for the presidency of Chile, Gabriel Boric, after casting his vote this Sunday in the southern city of Punta Arenas.

At 35, the minimum age to run for the Chilean presidency, the leftist deputy is part of the Approve Dignity coalition, which brings together the Broad Front – of which he is a part – and the Communist Party.

But in the second round, in which he faces the extreme right Jose Antonio Kast, won the support of the entire center-left. Should he win, he would become the youngest president in the history of Chile.

Boric he voted at the Patagonia school in the populous Prat neighborhood, in the east of Punta Arenas, his hometown (about 3,000 km south of Santiago), where many people turned out early in the morning with flags from the Magallanes region. Amid applause and shouts, the shout of: “Feel, feel, Boric, president!” Was heard insistently.

“I know that history does not start with us and that the country is built with everyone. I hope that tonight, if you agree, to be the president of all Chileans “He added after voting in the midst of dozens of local and foreign media.

Faced with the calls made by the Kast command to challenge the result of the vote if it is very close, Boric assures that he will abide by the result “whatever it may be.”

“We will respect the result, whatever it may be, without installing cloaks of doubt”, he claimed.

“But we are going to win (…) because we have the certainty of making a Chile more humane, more dignified, more egalitarian and that is what we are going to dedicate all our efforts to “added.

More than 15 million Chileans are called to vote after an electoral campaign marked by a highly polarized tone.

In the first round, closet he won with 27.9% of the votes, while Boric obtained 25.7%. The two represent options in ideological antipodes, while the deputy promises a “welfare state”, the ultraconservative lawyer offers to maintain the neoliberal model imposed by the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).

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