Chile: Presidential Candidates To Hold Last Debate On Monday

On Monday, Chilean presidential candidates Gabriel Boric, Jose Kast, Yasna Provoste, Sebastian Sichel, Marco Enriquez-Ominami, and Eduardo Artes will discuss their government proposals in the last presidential debate ahead of the Nov. 21 elections.

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Candidate Franco Parisi (People’s Party) will not participate in the debate since he tested positive for COVID-19 and must remain in quarantine in the United States, from where he has developed his whole political campaign.

"To guarantee the debate success, the ideas that we exchange must be honest, and the data we show must be reliable and substantial,” the 35-year-old leftist politician Boric stated and stressed the importance of dialogue to resolve political conflicts.

As part of his government proposals, Boric suggested transforming the current private pension system into a public system capable of ensuring decent pensions to all Chileans and decentralizing the president's power to grant political participation to all citizens.

He also agreed with Provoste and Sichel on the need to increase spending on culture from 0,3 to 1 percent of the national budget and proposed along with Enriquez-Ominami that the structure of Chilean production should stop being focused on the export of commodities.

"We are glad that Boric appears as one of the favorite candidates in voter intent polls. However, we also fear of the well-positioning of far-right candidate Kast, who aims to bring back hard-won rights of women and LGBTIQ+ people,” activist Felipe Carcamo warned.

Kant defended the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), the anti-abortion laws, and the non-legalization of egalitarian marriage during his political campaign.

"What this politician proposes is not a change: it is violence, censorship, persecution, and hatred," the Organizing Trans Diversities association member Matival Cortez stated.