'No middle ground': Chile voters face tough choice as run-off looms

"I didn't think that here in Chile we would see a repeat of what happened in the United States with [Donald] Trump or in Brazil with [Jair] Bolsonaro," says teacher and writer Viviana Ávila.

Ms Ávila is referring to the polarisation Chile has seen since left-wing former student leader Gabriel Boric and ultra-conservative former Congressman José Antonio Kast made it through to the run-off in the presidential election.

With the second round - scheduled for 19 December - pitching two politicians representing completely opposing stances against each other, debate among Chileans had become extremely heated.

One voter, Soledad González, told the BBC the first round had left Chileans "with the worst possible scenario, between Kast and Boric, with no meeting point in the middle".

Another said that she had never seen her country so deeply divided.

Gabriel Boric, 35, first came to prominence when he led the marches for education reform which swept through Chile in 2012. He now heads a political coalition which includes the leftist Frente Amplio (Broad Front) and Chile's Communist Party.

A progressive, Mr Boric wants the Chilean state to play a leading role in providing and guaranteeing social rights.

His rival, former Congressman José Antonio Kast, 55, is standing for the ultra-conservative Republican Party. Mr Kast wants the state to play a smaller role and is proposing to reduce taxes and regulations.

With immigration a hot topic, Mr Kast has also talked about the need for a "security barrier" to stop migrants from entering Chile. But he has denied being "ultra-right", arguing that left-wing detractors have labelled him as such in order to discredit him.

Mr Kast's tough stance on law and order has endeared him to voters like 57-year-old engineer Patricio Lira.

"The fundamental thing for me is that he talks about recovering social peace and the rule of law and safeguarding civil order," Mr Lira says.

Mr Lira is among many Chileans who do not want to see a repeat of the mass protests which paralysed the country in late 2019 and 2020, when millions of people angry at the country's high levels of inequality took to the streets.

"These protests last two or three days in other countries; here, there was looting, robbery," Mr Lira says about the violence that erupted.

"If someone proposes that authorities must restore order, people say that he's extreme right, dangerous. I say: how does burning a small store constitute a form of political protest":[]}