By Fabian Cambero and Carlos Serrano

SANTIAGO (Reuters – Chile’s centrist presidential contenders are trailing behind the polarized favorites from the right and left before Sunday’s election. But they may play key roles in the expected second round run-off.

Yasna Provoste (51), a former teacher, is third in opinion polls of the center-left Christian Democratic Party, just behind Jose Antonio Kast, hard-right frontrunner, and Gabriel Boric, leftist former student protest leader.

Sebastian Sichel, 44-years old, is a lawyer, and an independent ally to the center right ruling coalition. He’s in fourth.

These two have been eliminated, according to polls. Voters shifting to radical candidates as a result of anger at inequality and crime has led to voters moving to these extreme candidates.

According to most pollsters, Kast and Boric will win the top two places needed for a December run-off. However both candidates will not be able to get the required 50% plus one vote to win the election. Attracting voters from their centrist competitors will be important.

However, it is not known how moderate voters will vote in a run-off. Chile is a voluntary country, and voters may choose to abstain or follow the lead of their first choices.

Sichel is backed in part by Sebastian Pinera’s conservative administration. However, Sichel has also criticised Boric and distanced him from Kast. Kast has previously praised Augusto Pinochet’s “economic legacy”. Some of his fellow members have pressed him to support Kast.

Sichel declared last month, “I won’t accept blackmail from people who want to make me into somebody that I’m not.” It seems like some people want to support the old right and go back to the past.”

Chile election race https://graphics.reuters.com/CHILE-ELECTION/xmpjoryxzvr/chart.png

“DEMOCRACY Vs POPULISM”

A Pulso Ciudadano poll on probable voters was released in November. Kast received 27.3% support, Boric 23.7% and Provoste 13.5%, while Sichel got 11.3%.

The opinion of pollsters is split on whether Boric or Kast would prevail in a head to head. Some polls suggest that Sichel and Provoste might win the second round.

Provoste is an indigenous-ancestry candidate and the only female among seven candidates for the presidency. Her voters are more likely to support Boric over Kast. However, some analysts see her conservatism as a clash with her leftist credential.

Robert Funk from University of Chile, who is a political scientist and analyst, stated that “She assumed a left wing discourse but she doesn’t come from the Left.”

Boric will also have to calm moderate voters fears regarding the Communist Party’s presence in his large coalition.

Provoste is a prominent member of the coalition which has overthrown the copper-rich Chile since 1990.

She has pledged sustainable growth and the rebuilding of the country after the COVID-19 epidemic. She pledges “governability to overpopulism.”

Recently, she stated at a forum for business that “We are the heirs of a government alliance, the broadest but also the most effective in recent years”

Sichel is critical of the inconsistencies found in both Kast’s programs and Boric’s economic plans.

In a meeting this month with business leaders, he stated that “this is our most significant election of the 21st Century.” “It’s not just democracy against violence that is in play, but it also has to do with populism.”