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Updated November 22nd, 2021 at 16:48 IST

Chile candidate Boric votes in presidential elections

Chilean presidential hopeful and former student protest leader Gabriel Boric said Sunday's elections were about "hope beating fear", as he cast his ballot in the southern city of Punta Arenas.

Chile
IMAGE: AP | Image:self
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Chilean presidential hopeful and former student protest leader Gabriel Boric said Sunday's elections were about "hope beating fear", as he cast his ballot in the southern city of Punta Arenas.

Pre-election polls point to a large number of undecided voters but consistently have favored two of the seven candidates running: Boric and his ideological opposite, José Antonio Kast, who has a history of defending Chile's past military dictatorship.

But neither is expected to garner enough support to cross the 50% threshold required to avoid a runoff vote next month.

Within striking distance of the two frontrunners are center-right candidate Sebastián Sichel and center-left former Education Minister Yasna Provoste. Also up for grabs is Chile's entire 155-seat lower house of Congress and about half the Senate.

Boric, 35, would become Chile's youngest modern president.

He was among several student activists elected to Congress in 2014 after leading protests for higher quality education.

Running as the head of a broad alliance that includes Chile's Communist Party, if elected he says he will raise taxes on the "super rich" to expand social services and boost protections of the environment.

He also vowed to eliminate the country's private pension system — one of the hallmarks of the free market reforms imposed in the 1980s by Gen. Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship.

IMAGE: AP

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Published November 22nd, 2021 at 16:48 IST

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