Uneasy Chileans already voting with their wallets

Miguel Torres is the archetype of what might be called the Chilean dream. A university dropout, he rose above his working-class roots thanks to decades of economic stability and Asian Tigerlike growth to build a successful career as the owner of a small outdoor advertising business.

But in the runup to Chile’s presidential election tomorrow, the 68-year-old has been attempting the previously unthinkable: to sell the spacious home he built in the capital, Santiago, with a lifetime of hard work. He plans to stash the proceeds abroad and downsize.

‘‘I’m too old to leave the country,’’ he says. ‘‘But I’m not going to leave what little money I have here.’’

Torres isn’t the only Chilean on edge. After an intense wave of social and political unrest in recent years, including a current effort to rewrite the constitution, Chileans are heading to the polls with a mix of dread, optimism and, above all, uncertainty about what lies ahead.

The country has long stood in sharp contrast to its chaotic neighbours, such as chronic debt defaulter Argentina, or Peru, which has seen five presidents since 2018.

But there is growing frustration with the free market economic model and its inability to root out nagging inequality and deliver affordable, quality public services in the country of 19 million people.

Polls consistently point to two frontrunners ahead of all others

in the seven-candidate race.

Gabriel Boric is a 35-year-old former protest leader who has formed an alliance with the Communist Party and promises to ‘‘bury’’ Chile’s past as a model of neoliberalism – a jab at the reforms imposed in the 1980s by General Augusto Pinochet. Jose Antonio Kast is a previously fringe candidate from Chile’s far Right who has a long history of defending the dictator’s rule and attacking what he calls Chile’s ‘‘gay lobby’’.

In the runup to the vote, Chileans like Torres have been voting with their wallets, opening United States dollar-denominated bank accounts and moving their

savings abroad, in the time-tested manner of their neighbours in Argentina.

Capital flight by non-corporate businesses and households surged to US$29 billion (NZ$41b) in the 12 months to September, a jump of nearly 70 per cent from the outflows reported a year earlier. Bond prices and the peso have also fallen sharply.

Reflecting Chile’s recent upheaval, and South America’s increasingly polarised politics, the two main candidates are a study in contrasts.

Boric rose to prominence as a leader of protests a decade ago demanding higher-quality and less expensive education. He was elected to congress in 2014, and was noted for his informal dress, hipster tattoos, and at one point even a Mohawk hairdo.

The Broad Front he heads is modelled on a leftist coalition of the same name in Uruguay, and wants to raise Chile’s taxes on the ‘‘super rich’’ to pay for expanding public services and environmental protections.

Boric also wants to eliminate Chile’s privatised pension system, a hallmark of the Pinochet years, which leaves masses of working-class Chileans without enough to retire on.

Kast is an admirer of Brazil’s far-Right President Jair Bolsonaro, and his newly formed Republican Party wants to cut corporate taxes and government red tape.

He has run a mostly law-andorder campaign that has stoked divisions on social issues such as abortion and LGBTQ rights, immigration, and the role of religion in schools.

Sergio Bitar, who served in the socialist administration of Salvador Allende that was overthrown by Pinochet, as well as several centre-left governments since, said the myth of the Chilean ‘‘economic miracle’’ died long ago. In indicators such as household income and poverty, the country lags far behind its peers in the Organisation for Economic Development.

‘‘Let’s hope the youth don’t commit the same mistake as us in underestimating the Right,’’ said Bitar, who was forced into exile for years after being imprisoned by Pinochet in the 1973 coup. ‘‘Without governability, there can be no progress.’’