President-Elect Boric’s Image Strengthens Among Chileans

Two opinion companies showed that the positive image of Chile's President-elect Gabriel Boric increases among Chileans two weeks after his resounding victory against the far-right politician Jose Antonio Kast.

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On Monday, a survey carried out by Candem revealed that 63 percent of Chileans have a "positive or very positive" image of the former student leader, compared to 27 percent who have a "negative or very negative" image.

Boric's approval was 92 percent among left-wing voters, 66 percent among citizens of the center, and 31 percent among those who define themselves as right-wing.

This 35-years-old politician became the most voted president in the history of Chile on Dec. 19, when he obtained 55.8 percent of the votes beating Kast by almost 12 percentage points of difference. Besides obtaining broad support in large cities such as Santiago and Valparaiso, Boric succeeded in Atacama, O'Higgins, Antofagasta and others in rural areas in which he lost in the first electoral round.

On Sunday, the Pulse survey published that 54 percent of Chileans have "positive feelings" towards Boric, who will replace outgoing President Sebastian Piñera on March 11. It also showed that 51.6 percent of citizens rated his as "very good" during his first week as president-elect, compared to 29.1 percent who rated him as regular and 19.2 percent who rated him as "bad or very bad."

A staunch critic of the neoliberal model inherited by the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship (1973-1990), Boric promises to expand the role of the State and create a welfare model similar to the European one. To achieve this, he will have to grapple with a highly fragmented Parliament, push for economic recovery, and stabilize a country still divided by the 2019 uprising.

The leftist politician was one of the main drivers of the constituent process, which emerged as an institutional response to riots in which the military police's brutality left over 30 dead and thousands injured. Now Boric will have to lead the implementation of the norms of the new Constitution, in case it is approved in a plebiscite.