Gabriel Boric with community leaders in Santiago’s Cerro Navia district
Photographer: Tamara Merino for Bloomberg Markets
Left-Wing Rage Threatens a Wall Street Haven in Latin America
A leftist leader rises in Chile. Will its vaunted economic miracle survive?
One evening in August, Gabriel Boric sat outdoors on a bench, listening and taking notes. A light jacket covered the tattoos on his forearms, but his thick beard and full head of unruly hair betrayed him as the rabble-rousing student protester he was not long ago. In a working-class neighborhood of Santiago, the capital of Chile, he represented the vanguard of a fast-rising left-wing political movement.
At 35 years old, Boric has become the front-runner in the race to become president of Chile. His ascent, part of a broader shift to the left across Latin America, is rattling international corporations and investment firms, which have long favored Chile as perhaps the most market-friendly developing economy in the world.
