Chile's future government will fall on a political extreme

The details: Gabriel Boric, a 35-year-old leftist Congress member and former student leader, will face off against José Antonio Kast, an ultraconservative 55-year-old lawyer who has defended Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship.

• Kast got 27% of the votes — the most of all candidates — on Sunday.
• Boric champions levying more taxes on companies, reforming pensions, and increasing financing and tightening regulations to try to reduce the environmental effects of state-owned mining company, Codelco.
• Kast proposes privatizing that company and possibly raising export taxes or output royalties on copper, which could increase the metal’s price.
• Chile is the world's largest producer of copper and second-largest of lithium, both key for electronics and for manufacturing renewable energy technologies.

Context: The Andean nation is the most economically advanced country in Latin America and the Caribbean, though it's still plagued by socioeconomic inequalities.

• Tensions regarding those inequalities came to a head in massive protests two years ago, which led to a constitutional revision process.
• Currently, Chile is ruled by the 1980 Constitution, drafted by the Pinochet regime and which critics say is excessively rigid for issues such as social security reforms.
• The convention drafting a new constitution has put forth progressive proposals that might hinge on whoever is elected in December.

The big picture: Since its return to democracy in 1990, Chile has had center-left and center-right presidents. That will change with Boric or Kast.