Significance: Students have been at the forefront of public protests in Chile in recent years, putting successive governments on the backfoot and progressively advancing their crusade for free universal education. They feel a re-elected Piñera poses a threat. The spokesman for the Coordinadora Nacionales de Estudiantes Secundarios (Cones), Francisca Flores, said that Piñera would “jeopardise all the advances that we have achieved from the streets”. In his campaign proposals, presented on 3 May, Piñera promised to maintain free university education for those currently enjoying it but to overhaul the system of grants and credits, which students have interpreted as meaning he plans to roll back the gains for which they have fought.
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