When he took office as Chile’s president in early 2022, the youthful Gabriel Boric was hailed internationally as the refreshing new face of progressive politics But he is concluding a four-year term as a battered figure; polls indicate his successor will come from Chile’s right.
Boric’s trajectory may serve as a cautionary tale for the mayor-elect of New York City, Zohran Mamdani.
From Student Politics to the Big Time
Both Mamdani, 34, and Boric, who assumed Chile’s presidency at age 36, come from comfortable backgrounds. Mamdani is the son of a Columbia University professor who specializes in anti-colonial scholarship (though the family became rich through collaboration with British colonialism in East Africa). Boric comes from a prominent family in southern Chile.
Both began political life at university. Mamdani attended Bowdoin College in Maine, majoring in “Africana Studies” and founding a chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine. Boric studied law at the University of Chile before leaving without a degree. Passionately engaged in politics, he became president of the university’s student government on a ticket entitled “We are creating the Left” and became a leading figure in Chile’s Federation of University Students.
Both entered electoral politics without any significant detour into the working world. Mamdani won a seat in New York’s state legislature in 2020 as a Democratic Socialist. Boric similarly moved from student politics to the national stage, becoming a member of Chile’s Congress in 2014 as an independent leftist, while working to forge a coalition of “new leftist” parties which became known as the Broad Front.
Plugging in to Public Unhappiness
Both made the jump from legislator to high executive office through their ability to tap into discontent and to create “cool” public personas.
New York, once a bankrupt, dangerous, graffiti-scarred metropolis, had transformed itself by the 2020s into a glittering capital, with the towering condos of Billionaires’ Row and the clubs where the “finance bros” could party. But it had also become a city in which its vast lower and middle class population found life ever more expensive. Living in New York had become a “luxury good,” as then-mayor Michael Bloomberg, himself a billionaire, said in 2005.
Chile in its own way walked a similar path. The harsh austerity policies of the Pinochet era of economic adjustment created one of Latin America’s most advanced economies. After the transition to democracy, successive center-left and center-right governments used the country’s wealth to provide new health and educational opportunities. Nonetheless many Chileans were not sharing in the country’s prosperity (and this gap was cultivated by Chile’s leftist parties), culminating in nationwide protests known as the “social explosion” during 2019-20 that set the stage for Boric’s election.
Both had weak opponents. Mamdani’s principal rival, former Governor Andrew Cuomo, seeking a reboot after resigning in the face of charges of sexual harassment, had little to say beyond denouncing his leftist opponent.
In Chile, Boric’s conservative predecessor, Sebastian Piñera, could not run again (and, following the social explosion, almost certainly would have lost in any case). Chile’s center-right and right parties picked an ultra-conservative candidate who was not in tune with the national mood. Meanwhile Chile’s center-left parties joined with Boric’s new left grouping, as did Chile’s old-line Communist Party, to give him victory.
Both also had appealing styles. Boric and Mamdani were fluent on social media and engaged younger voters. Indeed, if Mamdani was the candidate favored by the hipsters of Brooklyn’s Bushwick and Williamsburg, Boric was that of Ñuñoa, the Santiago neighborhood favored by artistic and media types. And in both cases their attractive images and claims to offer a fresh alternative to the establishment resonated beyond these enclaves.
Big Ideas with Big Price Tags
Both figures made no secret of their hostility to business-as-usual politics. Boric famously said: “If Chile was the birthplace of neo-liberalism, it will also be its tomb.” Mamdani was quoted as saying “I don’t think we should have billionaires.”
Both campaigned on platforms of increased public spending, to be financed by taxes on the wealthy. Mamdani called for free bus service, free child care, the construction of public housing, a rent freeze, and a network of city-owned grocery stores. Boric called for nationalizing Chile’s privatized pension system, student debt relief, reparations for Chile’s indigenous peoples, and strict environmental enforcement.
Suspicion of law enforcement has characterized both men. Mamdani supported the “Defund the Police” movement, although he subsequently moved away from it. Boric as legislagtor demanded “deep reform” of the police, insisting that they “cannot keep killing people,” although he too modified his rhetoric over time, eventually merely calling for “improvements.”
Palestine on their Minds
Both Mamdani and Boric have been deeply involved in the Israel-Palestine issue in almost exactly the same way. Mamdani has asserted that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide and that he would be comfortable arresting Prime Minister Netanyahu should he visit New York. Boric has also termed Israel’s actions as genocide and has taken concrete actions such as first withdrawing Chile’s military attachés and later its ambassador from Israel.
Two thirds of New York’s Jews voted for other candidates than Mamdani. Boric similarly is viewed with suspicion by Chile’s relatively small Jewish community. He has avoided participating in its events to which he has been invited, unlike previous presidents, while appearing at those of Chile’s (much larger) Palestinian community.
The Glitter Wears Off
Boric initially benefited from unhappiness with perceived inequality and dissatisfaction with policies seen as favoring the wealthy. But as crime increased in Chile, public security became a hot button issue which crowded out his message of redistributing wealth. Having been a vocal critic of the police in the past, he was unable to cope rhetorically with this change in the public mood, although after some delay, he sought to provide new resources to law enforcement. Nonetheless, the issue of crime now belongs to Chile’s right.
Boric also suffered from Chile’s economic doldrums, and his conservative opponents have blamed him for creating an environment, through over-regulation and anti-business rhetoric, which is unsympathetic to investment. Mamdani may find that, given his own rhetoric, he will be politically vulnerable should a recession hit the city.
Much of Mamdani’s program, like Boric’s, will require new funding. In 2023, Boric proposed a wealth tax and an increase in the personal income tax, but failed to gain passage through Chile’s Congress. He did, however, gain an increase in royalties from the mining sector. (Chile is the world’s largest copper producer.) To pay for his ambitious program, Mamdani has proposed a two percent surtax on city residents earning more than one million dollars per year. To obtain this he will have to deal with the rancorous politics of both New York City and New York State. Like Boric, he may get some but likely not all of the funding he seeks.
Personnel is Policy
Boric, without any experience running a large business or government agency, chose many figures from his milieu of student activists-turned politicians for key cabinet and sub-cabinet positions. On many occasions they proved weak in dealing with inevitable crises, and in some cases were implicated in financial scandals.
Mamdani has thus far picked two deputy mayors; one held the same role in the left-leaning Bill de Blasio’s administration while another, a fellow Democratic Socialist, served as Mamdani’s campaign manager and chief of staff. It remains unclear to what degree he will staff the rest of his administration with other members of the activist community.
In short, a sensibility attuned to the frustrations of a disaffected young generation, together with fashionable but expensive ideas, may get one into office, but it is not enough to make for a successful tenure. Mamdani will have to find new money, build a functioning administration, and prioritize among his many plans. (One idea ripe for jettisoning is that of municipally-owned grocery stores. Chile similarly tried “people’s pharmacies” amidst charges of corruption in their management.)
He will have to thread the needle between the demands of his constituents, including his young, ideologically-committed hard core supporters, and those of New York’s powerful business and financial communities.
Mamdani should learn from Boric’s mistakes. Otherwise he will end up, like Boric, as a fixture at international conferences of progressive intellectuals, where he will explain the grand plans he had and what might have been.
