Hello, and welcome to the Latin America Weekly newsletter! This week: Elections in Chile strike a blow to mainstream political parties. Turmoil increases for the Castillo administration in Peru. AMLO meets with Biden on a rare foreign trip.
No country for mainstream politics
Chile went to the polls on Sunday for its first round of presidential elections, with results remaining largely in line with recent surveys and delivering a big slice of humble pie to the country’s political establishment. The mainstream center was relegated to fourth and fifth positions, while the far-right and left will face off in a December 19 runoff. Here are the main takeaways from this weekend’s vote:
- José Antonio Kast, an unapologetic right-winger known for his defense of dictator Augusto Pinochet’s economic legacy, came out on top with 27.9 percent of the vote.
- Left-wing Gabriel Boric came in a close second with 25.8 percent. Of the main candidates, Mr. Boric is the clearest representative of the massive protest movement that upended the country in 2019 and led to the full rewriting of Chile’s dictatorship-era constitution.
- The right also gained ground in Congress, with all conservative parties combined securing exactly half of Senate...