Taylor Swift has a very high profile fan in Gabriel Boric, the former student protest leader who this week was named Chile's next President after winning the runoff vote against far-right candidate José Antonio Kast.
At 35, Boric is the youngest President-Elect in Chile's history. He also happens to be a fan of Taylor Swift.
A photo of Boric wearing Swift’s merch alongside a tweet of his declaring #IFeelSwiftie began to circulate online after he won the election.
He's even identified his favorite Swift album as Folklore, which was released to significant acclaim earlier during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Fans of the singer were happy to count the Chilean President-elect among their fellow Swifties.
Congratulations on his win poured in from all over the world.
Boric, a former student protest leader with the political collective Izquierda Autónoma and the Federación de Estudiantes de la Universidad de Chile (FECH), ran a campaign that included proposals to cancel student debt, strengthen environmental protections and raise taxes on the rich.
In 2014, he was sworn in as as a member of the Chamber of Deputies, sitting on the Commissions for Human Rights and Indigenous Peoples; Extreme Zones and the Chilean Antarctic; and Labour and Social Security and later the Commissions for Extreme Zones and the Chilean Antarctic; and Constitution, Legislation, Justice and Regulation.
Boric has been outspoken in his criticisms of neoliberal policies and has rejected the legacy of his country's dictatorship under Augosto Pinochet, who persecuted leftists, socialists, and political critics, and was responsible for scores of human rights violations, including forced disappearances and executions.
He won the election with 55.85% of the vote and his inauguration is slated for March 11, 2022.
Even during a highly polarized election, Boric found time to make his love for Taylor Swift known on the campaign trail, at one point pulling out a small photo of Swift and showing it to the camera when asked by Swift's fans if he identified as a fellow "Swiftie."
