Despite her defeat, Camila Vallejo’s influence keeps growing

Camila Vallejo, the “student who can shut a city”, has lost the race to be re-elected as the president of the most important Chilean students’ organisation starting in 2012. She will, however, be the vice-president of the University of Chile’s students. Despite this defeat, her political impact and popularity seem to grow stronger every passing day. She was featured in Time magazine’s “person of the year” issue, and Guardian readers also voted her top of their own poll.

The student movement in Chile robustly criticised neoliberalism and shook the country’s elitist democracy. Students were in the streets for more than six months, and showed that their own leaders can become political actors – Camila Vallejo being the most prominent of these.

At 23 years old, Vallejo was elected as president of the University of Chile students’ federation in November 2010. At that time she was known only among university circles, but six months later she became a familiar face to most Chileans. She led the first massive students’ march in June 2011, and with other student leaders, contributed to change the debate about education in Chile.

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