Chile’s presidential run-off on 14 December will mark the end of the government led by Frente Amplio, a platform of young progressive parties that disrupted a political system that for 30 years had been dominated by two coalitions: the traditional right and the centre-left.
“Frente Amplio is a historical exception: we were a flash in the pan associated with the student movement. No one planned that a few years later we would be in government, disputing a constitutional process. It was a very dizzying thing,” said Diego Ibáñez, a deputy for the party, days after the election’s first round on 16 November.
Ibáñez entered Congress in 2018, joining the parliamentary group of Gabriel Boric, who would be elected president four years later. Ibáñez was 29 years old at the time, and had a background as a student leader in Valparaíso, a port city near Santiago. Now 36, after two terms as a deputy, he will become the youngest senator in Chile’s history, having won a seat in the Senate at last month’s elections.
