The people of Chile are expunging the last traces of the brutal dictator Augusto Pinochet. They elected Gabriel Boric, a 35-year-old member of the Chilean Congress and a former student activist, as President of Chile. The election was expected to be close but Boric won by a 56-44% margin.
Boric was engaged in national protests over the past decade against inequality. A decade ago, he led protests against Chile’s privatized education system. He will be the youngest person ever elected to the Presidency of Chile. His election is a decisive rejection of the policies of the dictator Pinochet. His rival defended Pinochet and ran on a law-and-order platform and a pledge to cut taxes and social spending.
An Army General, Pinochet seized control of the government by a coup d’etat. He imposed a reign of terror, and thousands of his opponents were murdered, imprisoned, tortured, or disappeared. Pinochet called on Milton Friedman and the libertarian “Chicago Boys” to rewrite Chile’s Constitution. They baked the primacy of the free market and neoliberalism into the new Constitution. Pinochet’s regime cut social benefits, privatized social security and many government functions, reduced benefits, and introduced vouchers and for-profit schools. The economy grew, but so did inequality. Pinochet ruled from 1973-1990.
Protests against the nation’s privatized and deeply unequal education system rocked the nation a decade ago. Many Chileans were barely subsisting because of cuts to social security. More protests broke out in 2019 against the country’s entrenched inequality and corruption. Boric was active in all those protests.
Last year, Chileans expressed their demand for change by voting for a rewrite of the national constitution, the one written by the “Chicago Boys” and implemented by Pinochet.
The BBC reported:
Once the most stable economy in Latin America, Chile has one of the world’s largest income gaps, with 1% of the population owning 25% of the country’s wealth, according to the United Nations.
Mr Boric has promised to address this inequality by expanding social rights and reforming Chile’s pension and healthcare systems, as well as reducing the work week from 45 to 40 hours, and boosting green investment.
“We know there continues to be justice for the rich, and justice for the poor, and we no longer will permit that the poor keep paying the price of Chile’s inequality,” he said.
The president-elect also promised to block a controversial proposed mining project which he said would destroy communities and the national environment.
Chile’s currency, the peso, plunged to a record low against the US dollar after Mr Boric’s victory. Stock markets fell by 10%, with mining stocks performing particularly badly.
Investors are worried stability and profits will suffer as a result of higher taxes and tighter government regulation of business.
In a profile of Gabriel Boric, the BBC described his message:
When Mr Boric won the candidacy of his leftist bloc to run for president, he made a bold pledge. “If Chile was the cradle of neoliberalism, it will also be its grave,” he said. “Do not be afraid of the youth changing this country.”
And so he ran on a platform promising radical reforms to the free-market economic model imposed by former dictator Gen Augusto Pinochet. One that, he says, is the root of the country’s deep inequality, imbalances that came to the surface during protests in 2019 that triggered an official redraft of the constitution.
After a polarising campaign, Mr Boric defeated far-right rival José Antonio Kast in the second round of the presidential election by a surprising large margin, ushering in a new chapter in the country’s political history.
“We are a generation that emerged in public life demanding our rights be respected as rights and not treated like consumer goods or a business,” Mr Boric said in his victory speech to thousands of supporters, most of them young people…
Mr Boric, who says he is an avid reader of poetry and history, describes himself as a moderate socialist. He has abandoned the long hair of his activist days, and jackets now often cover his tattoos on both arms.
He has also softened some of his views while keeping his promises to overhaul the pension system, expand social services including universal health insurance, increase taxes for big companies and wealthy individuals, and create a greener economy.
His resounding win in the run-off vote of the presidential election, after trailing Mr Kast in the first round, came after he secured support beyond his base in the capital, Santiago, and attracted voters in rural areas. A supporter of same-sex marriage and abortion rights, he was also backed by huge numbers of women.
In his victory speech, when he was joined by his girlfriend, he promised to be a “president for all Chileans”, saying: “Today hope trumped fear”.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
And ran against privatizing public education!
Is there any country where the ed reform echo chamber agenda of privatizing public education has been 1. popular and/or 2. effective?
Is there an example of a country that had a public education system, listened to the advice of elite ed reformers and privatized, and ended with a better system? Or is this massive experiment they’re conducting in the United States wholly dependant on their ideological beliefs with no real evidence?
If ed reformers succeed and we eradicate public schools and their plans are a disaster can we “publicize” or do they just double down and go further and further Right?
Has any national ed reformer (Duncan, Bush, DeVos, the whole academic and lobbying corps) ever admitted error or changed direction? They’ve been in charge for 20 years. What is the likelyhood that they have never, ever erred? Slim, right? So if they never admit error it’s not based on not making errors, it’s based on never admitting one.
!Presente!
Don’t forget Kissinger and Nixon plotted to assassinate Allende allowing Pinochet to seize power.
Yes, I hope we don’t have a replay of the Allende affair. There are very powerful and wealthy interests that want Gabriel Boric disappeared. Best of luck to Chile and Boric.
It’s laughable how the libertarian clowns try to distance themselves from their part in empowering a bloody dictator, Pinochet. These are the free markets, limited government people, ha, ha, ha, too funny.
Milton Friedman and Henry Kissinger lose reelection in Chile
Good news!
That is pretty much the size of things, isn’t it Bob? I would add David Rockefeller to the list, though.
Yes, it looks like neoliberalism is dying in the cradle of neoliberalism. Liberals are taking office throughout South America, with the notable and pitiful exception of burning rainforest Brazil. And the Clinton Foundation is losing money by the truckload these days. Neoliberalism fails.
Boric’s opponent, Jose Kast’s father, an emigrant to Chile from Germany, was a member of the Nazi Party in Germany. Kast replied, “so was everyone else,” not really, the revelation was widely publicized in Chile.
“An Army General, Pinochet seized control of the government by a coup d’etat.”
Um, I think there’s a step missing there. Anyone have any idea who arranged that coup? Google Henry Kissinger for the full story and much, much more. Then tell me what business the U.S. has talking about human rights.