Explainer-Chile is set for its most polarized election in decades

FILE PHOTO: Chilean presidential candidate Jose Antonio Kast from far-right Republican Party meets with supporters during a campaign rally in the outskirts of Santiago, ahead of the first round of presidential elections on November 21, Chile, October 25, 2021. REUTERS/Ivan Alvarado/File Photo

SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Chile is set to vote for a new president on Sunday, with a far-right conservative battling for pole position against a young former student leader on the left, in the most polarized election since the country's return to democracy in 1990.

The vote is the first presidential ballot since Chile was rocked in 2019 by months of angry protests against economic inequalities that eventually sparked a process - still ongoing - to redraft its decades-old constitution.