'Burning the metro': Chile election divides voters between protest and
order
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[November 20, 2021]
By Gram Slattery
SANTIAGO (Reuters) - For many Chileans,
Plaza Baquedano, a broad rotary in central Santiago that for decades
served as a center of social protest, has become a powerful symbol of
hope.
For two years, city residents have regularly gathered here to protest
pensions that are too low, public transit fees that are too high and,
more generally, an old-guard political class that just does not get it.
The statue of a nineteenth-century general that sat at the plaza's
center has been removed , and its plinth is now covered in left-wing
political literature.
Most credit the protests - known collectively as the "estallido social"
or "social outbreak" - for bringing about an ongoing rewrite of the
nation's Pinochet-era constitution . The "estallido" has also helped
propel the candidacy of 35-year-old leftist Gabriel Boric, a relative
newcomer who has become a serious contender in this Sunday's
presidential election .
But not everyone is so enthralled.
Among the detractors is Ramon Zambrano, a doorman at a nearby apartment
building.
"You can protest, but peacefully. They're making a mess, burning cars,
burning the metro. What are they doing?" he asks, while pointing out the
damage done to the now graffiti-covered building where he works.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2021/Nov/20/images/ads/current/Applegate_exc_daily_sda_030314.png)
In a sense, the situation around Plaza Baquedano represents the central
paradox of the election here. While Chile's Left gained significant
traction via dozens of massive marches that began in 2019, two years of
sometimes-violent protests have made many voters wary.
That - combined with a widespread perception among Chileans that crime
is on the rise - has created an opportunity for the Right to gain ground
by hammering home a law-and-order message.
While Boric, who rose to fame heading student protests in 2011, had been
leading for most of 2021, José Antonio Kast, an ultra-right-wing former
congressman who draws comparisons to Donald Trump and Brazilian
President Jair Bolsonaro , has risen in the polls dramatically in recent
weeks.
Most recent polls show Kast drawing the largest vote share on Sunday. A
Nov. 6 survey by consultancy Activa Research has Kast narrowly winning a
likely runoff in December.
BURNED OUT
For Kenneth Bunker, director of political consultancy Tresquintos, a
particularly violent round of protests in late October helped boost the
Right.
A series of recent confrontations in the southern Araucania and Bio Bio
provinces - where police and separatist indigenous groups have long
feuded - has also played into Kast's hands.
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![](../images/112021pics/news_s69.jpg)
A soldier patrols inside a polling station ahead of the upcoming
presidential election in Santiago, Chile, November 19, 2021.
Chileans go to the polls in the first round of presidential
elections on November 21, 2021. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado
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"I think there is a very important part of the
country that's tired, they don't want any more of this," said
Gonzalo Cordero, a political consultant and columnist for the
national La Tercera newspaper.
Boric's supporters point out that almost 80% of Chileans, many fed
up with the nation's ultra-free-market economic model, voted last
year to rewrite the nation's constitution . A conservative like Kast
would do little to quell discontent, they argue.
"I think that if Kast is elected, there will be an 'estallido 2.0',"
said Pedro Muñoz, an elected member of the body re-writing Chile's
constitution.
Still, the Kast campaign is leaning in to the law-and-order message,
as are his supporters.
At his campaign's closing event on Thursday night, he pledged
repeatedly to crack down on crime. The strongest applause came when
he spoke in favor of police officers, many of whom have been accused
by the public and prosecutors of using violence against protestors.
Several supporters insisted without evidence in interviews that the
"estallido" was the product of foreign provocateurs, such as the
Venezuelan or Cuban governments.
Banners in favor of Trump were common, as were anti-crime banners
such as "Orden con Kast," or "Order with Kast."
Boric, for his part, is leaning in, too. While for Kast's supporters
the protests are a symptom of decline and disorder, for Boric, they
are a sign the previous order was not worth saving.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2021/Nov/20/images/ads/current/stclara_lda_SPONSOR_090519.png)
"We're going to do our politics from the streets," Boric said at his
own campaign event on Thursday night.
(Reporting by Gram Slattery; Additional reporting by Fabian Cambero
and Natalia A. Ramos Miranda; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
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