MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Former Chilean President Bachelet announces she will vote for Boric

“No one can be indifferent” to Sunday's outcome, Bachelet said

Former Chile President and current United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet Wednesday admitted she would support leftwing candidate Gabriel Boric for the Dec. 19 presidential runoff against far-right candidate José Antonio Kast.

Bachelet, who is in her native Chile since last Sunday, said she had returneed home in order to cast her vote for Boric because she was not indifferent about who wins next Sunday.

She pointed out in a one-minute video that “no one can be indifferent” to Sunday's outcome. Bachelet said it was “fundamental” to “elect a president who ensures that our country can truly continue on a path of progress for all, a path of greater freedom, equality, respect for human rights, a sustainable environment and of course the opportunity to a new constitution.”

Bachelet then stressed she would “vote for Gabriel Boric,” with whom she met privately Monday at the former president's home. Kast protested the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights “meddled in the election,” although those comments were downplayed Wednesday by the rightwing candidate's campaign management. “Did anyone have any doubts that she was going to vote for Boric?,” a spokesperson for Kast's team told local media.

But other lawmakers aligned with incumbent President Sebastián Piñera regretted Bachelet's stance, because an international official of the United Nations should not get involved in a local election, even if she is a citizen of that particular country and that Bachelet's move proved Boric's level of despair.

Meanwhile, the Regional Ministerial Secretary of Health fined Boric US $ 4,567 dollars for failing to comply with sanitary measures in the campaign launch after he revealed in a TV debate that on November 2 a urine test had been carried out to end a smear campaign against him on social media claiming he was a drug user and challenged Kast to take such a test.

Boric opened an envelope Monday night and showed the test result, sparking social media allegations that he had COVID-19 symptoms and needed to be isolated.

Regional Secretary of Metropolitan Health Helga Balich announced the opening of a dossier for a series of behaviors inconsistent with sanitary protocols such as activities involving crowds, lack of physical distancing, non-compliance with the permanent use of a mask and physical contact with hugs and greetings with followers.