Chile’s top student federation votes to stay the course

Gabriel Boric’s party wins top seat

Gabriel Boric’s party wins top seat again to lead FECH ahead of 2013 presidential election.

Andrés Fielbaum.

Andrés Fielbaum, an engineering graduate student from the incumbent “Creating a Broader Left” party, will steer Chile’s student movement in 2013. After being elected president of the Student Federation of Universidad de Chile (FECH) on Wednesday, he plans to ensure that Chile’s next president supports FECH’s demands for a high-quality, affordable education.

“First, we’ll get the ball rolling on increasing our influence in the important 2013 (national) election year in order to transform our university system,” Fielbaum told The Santiago Times.

As the leader of Chile’s foremost student organization, the president of the FECH is effectively the leading voice of the student movement that has swept the country for more than 18 months. Universidad de Chile students picked their leader out of six student groups on Monday and Tuesday. “Creating a Broader Left” won with 3,136 votes, followed by the liberal “Struggle to Construct a Popular Student Force” party with 2,326 votes. The communist “Students of the Left” party, which won the 2011 election led by Camila Vallejo, came in third with 2,205 votes.

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