The presidential race in Chile is on: Boric leads the polls and Kast surprises with a trip to the U.S.

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The countdown continues and in 20 more days Chileans will decide who will be their next president for the next four years. With the ballottage on the horizon, the political forces persist in their mission to gather support and the candidates José Antonio Kast and Gabriel Boric deploy their agendas with an eye on what their rivals are doing.

The first polls that emerged after Kast’s victory in the first round have not been entirely encouraging for the leader of the ultra-right, who won last November 21 with 27.91% of the votes against 25.83% for Boric. Two surveys published a few days apart gave the winner to the letter of the “Apruebo Dignidad” bloc.

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The survey Plaza Pública of the Cadem research center, projected a victory for Gabriel Boric with 39% of the votes, against 33% for José Antonio Kast, including an important percentage of undecided voters for this type of surveys, which reached 28%.

The study also outlined a profile of supporters. Boric was mainly supported by a segment that groups young people between 18 and 34 years old, residents of the capital Santiago and belonging to high and middle socioeconomic segments. Kast, on the other hand, concentrated his support in supporters whose majority are men, over 55 years of age and from affluent sectors.

Another poll that also showed the advantage of the former student leader was that of Pulso Ciudadano of the consulting firm Activa Research. According to the survey, Boric would clearly win the election with 40.4% of the votes, against 24.5% for Kast.

In the midst of this scenario, both candidates have intensified their activities in the field with the aim of catching some percentage of the more than 50% of Chileans who did not participate in the last election. Boric has headed activities with communities and together with his advisors has promoted the creation of citizen commands, in a sort of territorial deployment that was not seen in the first round.

The inclusion of the former president of the Medical Association, Izkia Siches, as head of the campaign also pushed this strategy, while the support of the Christian Democracy for his candidacy aimed directly at seducing voters from more moderate sectors, although it also aroused criticism in the business community. “I never imagined that I would see the DC supporting a presidential candidate of the extreme left”, commented Andrónico Luksic Craig, one of the richest men in Chile.

Despite the reactions, Boric thanked the support of the Falangist bloc. “I assume the challenge and the responsibility of summoning all those who feel part of democracy and who do not want us to go backwards in terms of human rights as proposed by the extreme right in Chile,” he said.

KAST IN THE U.S.

For his part, José Antonio Kast celebrated the inclusion in his command of the Undersecretary of Public Health, Dr. Paula Daza, one of the most visible faces of the government when facing the pandemic and who resigned from her position to join the team of the conservative leader.

“She is not a politician, she is a great doctor, a great woman and social leader”, said the candidate, who in the last hours surprised the Chilean political spectrum by announcing a trip to the United States. The reasons? To reverse his traditional image and soften the appellation of “extreme” that he carries; besides meeting with politicians and like-minded investors, and to emphasize the axes of his proposal: economic growth, to watch over public order and fiscal responsibility.

“It is going to be an important 24-hour trip and it is certainly centered fundamentally on political contacts and also with Chilean investors abroad, to give certainty that in Chile there will be rule of law, there will be legal certainty regarding investments, and that, therefore, Chile is a good destination for investment”, commented Senator Francisco Chahuán, president of Renovación Nacional, the last ruling party to confirm its support for the founder of the Republican Party.

In the United States, Kast will have an interview on CNN en Español with journalist Andrés Oppenheimer. After that, he will have a private meeting with Senator Marco Rubio, and then he will hold other meetings with representatives of the business sector. It was also mentioned the idea of Kast seeking a meeting in the United States with Franco Parisi, who finished third in the elections without campaigning in Chile, which has not yet been ruled out.

SICHEL’S MOVE

After a period of “reflection” after his defeat, where he came in third place, the former official candidate Sebastián Sichel committed his support to Kast’s option on the condition of fulfilling a petition of nine conditions, in the most questioned aspects of the representative of the right, and which generated total uncertainty in the hardest wing of his command.

In his proposal, devised as a mechanism to “reinforce democracy” according to his own advisors, Sichel asked Kast to square himself with some issues: unrestricted respect for human rights; to maintain the multilateralism of Chile’s international relations and its commitment to total respect for minorities and diversities, and condemnation of hate speeches.

“Sichel gave himself one last treat. In his nine conditions to support Kast, he exposes him as authoritarian and troglodyte. If the second point is to ask for guarantees on the respect for human rights, it is better not to continue reading. Sichel gave a pass to Boric”, analyzed Mauricio Morales, doctor in political sciences of the University of Talca.