One candidate is a 55-year-old father of nine, a strict Roman Catholic and free-market absolutist who praises the country’s previous dictatorship under Augusto Pinochet. The other is two decades younger, bearded, tattooed and unmarried – a leftist out to battle inequality, aid Indigenous communities, squeeze big mining, and make abortion legal and free.

On December 19, either rightist Jose Antonio Kast or leftist Gabriel Boric will be elected president of Chile and take the world’s biggest copper producer, a darling of international investors, down a path the other’s supporters will vehemently oppose. No matter who triumphs – early polls give the edge to Boric, a member of the lower house of Chile’s Congress – a country once seen as a model of neoliberal triumph is headed for rocky times.

Bloomberg Businessweek