Gabriel Boric assumes office in Chile: a "hinge presidency" launched amidst constitutional process

Abstract

On 19 December 2021, Gabriel Boric won the run-off of the Chilean presidential elec­tion with 55.9 percent of votes, 11.8 percentage points ahead of José Antonio Kast. That day voter participation in Chile reached a historic high (55.6 percent) since the abolition of mandatory voting. This great mobilisation helped Boric - who had finished second in the first round - to victory. The newly elected president therefore has a solid democratic foundation, but Chileans have also invested great hopes in him. Fur­thermore, the new head of government will have to contend with the tensions between two institutions: a Constitutional Convention and a Congress that is divided along party lines. His four-year mandate, starting on 11 March, could be both the last under the “Pinochet Constitution” and the start of a democratic transformation. (author's abstract)