Kirsten Sehnbruch

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Supporters of Chilean president-elect Gabriel Boric celebrate. Photograph: Claudio Reyes/AFP/Getty Images

MundoAmérica,

Victory is sweet. The hundreds of thousands of Chileans who took to the streets to celebrate the victory of the leftwing former student leader, Gabriel Boric, in Chile’s presidential runoff elections certainly thought so. Boric won with a 12-point margin and a historic number of votes, imposing a convincing defeat on the rightwing candidate José Antonio Kast that few would have predicted only a month ago. Yet Boric’s victory speech was anything but gloating.

Nodding towards the years of polarisation and protest leading up to the election, he stressed the need for “social cohesion, refinding ourselves, and sharing common ground”.

Earlier in his campaign he vowed to “bury neoliberalism”, sounding like the same revolutionary politician who led the social protests of 2011 and frustrated many parliamentary colleagues from traditional political parties during his eight years as a congressional deputy.…  Seguir leyendo »

Demonstrators supporting the reform of the Chilean constitution in Santiago, 25 October. Photograph: Pedro Ugarte/AFP/Getty Images

MundoAmérica

On Sunday, Chileans voted overwhelmingly in favour of establishing a new constitution. After one year of almost continuous social and violent protests, the country erupted upon hearing the news with the kind of jubilant parties and street celebrations that were last seen when a 1989 plebiscite put an end to the 17-year dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

Chile’s current constitution was written by Pinochet’s adviser and rightwing ideologue Jaime Guzmán, and was approved at the time by a rigged referendum. When Chile subsequently became a democracy in 1990, authoritarian principles enshrined in this constitution constrained the country’s process of democratisation and imposed a neoliberal model of economic development.…  Seguir leyendo »