After years in which Chile promised a rupture from neoliberalism, Sunday’s elections were a major setback. While the Left’s joint candidate, Jeannette Jara, a Communist Party member and recent labor minister, narrowly headed the first-round ballot, the runoff handed victory to the far-right José Antonio Kast.

It was bad news for supporters of outgoing president Gabriel Boric’s government. One was Giorgio Jackson, previously minister secretary-general and minister of social development and family between 2022 and 2023. A founder of the party Revolución Democrática, he was among the promoters of the Broad Front that brought the Left to power in Chile four years ago, following the far-reaching social revolt (estallido social) of 2019. This process had promised a new constitution for the country, but the proposed new document was defeated in a 2023 referendum.

Like Boric, Jackson began his political life as a student leader, part of the new political generation that has in recent years sought to dismantle the neoliberalism inherited from Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. In an interview with Pablo Castaño for Jacobin, he discussed the legacy of Boric’s government and what Kast’s arrival means for Chile.