Rage-Fueled Politics Threaten Latin America's Business Haven
Eduardo Thomson, Valentina Fuentes, Matthew Malinowski and Ethan Bronner, Bloomberg News
(Bloomberg Markets) -- One evening in August, Gabriel Boric sat outdoors on a bench, listening and taking notes. A light jacket covered the tattoos on his forearms, but his thick beard and full head of unruly hair betrayed him as the rabble-rousing student protester he was not long ago. In a working-class neighborhood of Santiago, the capital of Chile, he represented the vanguard of a fast-rising left-wing political movement.
At 35 years old, Boric has become the front-runner in the race to become president of Chile. His ascent, part of a broader shift to the left across Latin America, is rattling international corporations and investment firms, which have long favored Chile as perhaps the most market-friendly developing economy in the world.
One of the voters flocking to see Boric that day complained of long waits and poor care at public hospitals. Boric, who can be bookish, looked down, gathering his thoughts. Then he released them, like steam from a kettle. “This has to fill us with rage,” he said, clenching a fist. “And transform that rage into action.”
Rage helps explain why Boric consistently polls at or near the top of the seven candidates vying to lead Chile. It’s rage over inequality, as is evident from the hammer-and-sickle Communist Party flags that flutter nearby in solidarity with his movement, Frente Amplio, or Broad Front. As the name suggests, the rage also derives from something bigger, a growing generational shift in cultural attitudes about gender and sexuality along with economic views on wealth and taxes.
More:
https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/rage-fueled-politics-threaten-latin-america-s-business-haven-1.1662336
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Gabriel Boric
Clockwise from top left: Gabriel Boric, Yasna Provoste, José Antonio Kast, and Sebastián Sichel. (Images from candidates' social media pages)
Thursday, September 16, 2021
Explainer: Who's Who in Chile's 2021 Presidential Race
By
Holly K. Sonneland and Hope Wilkinson
Ahead of the November 21 first round, AS/COA Online profiles the backgrounds and platforms of Gabriel Boric and Yasna Provoste on the left, and Sebastián Sichel and José Antonio Kast on the right.
Chilean voters voiced two notable preferences in July’s primaries: youth and political moderatism. In July 18 primaries, Gabriel Boric and Sebastián Sichel beat out competitors who were older and farther to the left and right, respectively. When the March 2022 inauguration rolls around, polling frontrunner Boric would become Chile’s youngest president ever at 36 years old. Sichel, at 44 years, would be the youngest in 170 years. Presidents in Chile serve four-year terms.
Chileans vote in general elections on November 21. If no candidate receives a majority, the top two will face each other in a December 19 runoff. There are seven official candidates in the 2021 presidential race. We profile the top four, each of whom has garnered 10 percent or more in at least two major polls since August.
More:
https://www.as-coa.org/articles/explainer-whos-who-chiles-2021-presidential-race
