Photo: MAURO PIMENTEL / AFP / Getty Images
The death of Lucía Hiriart, widow of Augusto Pinochet and the woman behind one of the bloodiest dictatorships in Latin America , was the icing on a hectic presidential race in Chile that faces the leftist Gabriel Boric and the far right José Antonio Kast .
The event adds more uncertainty to these elections, the most momentous since the plebiscite that marked the dictator’s departure, in 1988, and that they arrive with a slight favoritism of Boric , according to the most polls, and with some poll even talking about a technical tie .
The general’s shadow had already flown over the entire campaign, especially at the hands of Kast -who has been complacent with his regime on several occasions- but the death of Hiriart el Thursday he put back on the fore a dictatorship that left more than 40, 12 victims and more than 3, 000 deceased or missing .
For Kenneth Bunker, although the figure of Hiriart “divides the country”, the impact of this fact will be “marginal” in the results of Sunday since the “vote of fear” was already mobilized.
“It can be said that his death is a symbol that marks the closing of a political, social and cultural cycle,” he told Eph.
Cautious Reactions
The news, which was first disclosed through local media and confirmed by the family at night, shook the closing of the campaign and was very present during the final Boric event, which opted for a prudent message and sent his “respects to the victims of the dictatorship.”
In a In the public park in the center of Santiago, tens of thousands of people gathered to hear the last slogans of the leader of the Frente Amplio, who was interrupted at times by mobs celebrating and cheering to the sound of “The old woman died.”
People in Chile celebrated after Lucia Hiriart, widow of ex-dictator Augusto Pinochet, died at 99.
Over 3, 000 were disappeared and thousands tortured under his rule. The Pinochet-era constitution, linked to inequality and sidelining of Indigenous people, is now being rewritten. pic.twitter.com/Bui9z5bVWD
— AJ + (@ajplus) December 17, 2021
Meanwhile, Kast ignored the Pinochet family and assured that he will not attend the funeral, which will be a private event that still has no date.
“I do not want to make a political fact of this, I understand the historical views but I leave it as a human fact,” said the ultraconservative, leader of the Republican Party.
For Jaime Abedrapo, director of the San Sebastián University School of Government, with this strategy Kast has managed to distance himself from the issue and not disturb his electorate, among which there are nostalgic for the dictatorship but also other sectors that reject it.
“ Hiriart’s death will hardly have a direct impact on the polls , although it depended “How the candidates behave could imply an even more polarized scenario,” he told Efe.
de Pinochet
After years of numerous false news about his death, Hiriart’s death revived in much of society the memory of the dictatorship and, inevitably, turned the gaze on Kast.
His family had numerous ties to the regime – one of his many brothers was a minister at that time-; supported the continuity of the general in the plebiscite of 1988, and when he ran for the Presidency as an independent in 2017, the ultra-conservative assured that the general would vote for him if he were alive.
“I don’t agree with Boric, I He seems too young and with little experience, but I am going to vote for him because I do not want a Pinochet president ”, assured Efe Paz Luengo, from 52 years, resident in a poor neighborhood south of the capital.
Lawyer , 55 years, deeply Catholic and with nine children, a few weeks ago he surrounded him again the controversy when it came to light that his father, of German origin, belonged to the Nazi party.
“I don’t care where he comes from your family or your personal affairs. That does not have to interfere and he is a candidate who gives me security, “said Luis Barahona, a young man from 17 years.
For a part of society, Kast has become the candidate of “order”, one of the maxims of his speeches, while the changes Boric offers are interpreted as a symbol of instability and give insecurity to the markets.
The leftist defends a welfare state, with a feminist and environmentalist accent; while Kast is in favor of preserving the current neoliberal model although with slight changes and has a strong anti-immigration discourse. Boric’s response to those who question his intention to change is always the same: “If you want a true transformation in peace, with order and stability, I invite you to become part of this collective project.”
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