Leftist Janet Jara and far-right José Antonio Cast are scheduled to compete in Chile’s presidential runoff on December 14, according to a count of 71.2% – at the conclusion of this edition – of the first round votes.
Jara, a member of the Communist Party and leader of a coalition of nine center-left parties, came in first place in the vote with 26.7%. Kast of the Republican Party came in second place with 24.2%. Third place was surprisingly achieved by the candidate of the People’s Party (Independent), Franco Baresi, with a percentage of 19.2%.
Opinion polls give the winner in the second round to the 59-year-old lawyer Kast, who is competing for the third time, as the various conservative forces that appeared in this first round announced that they will accompany him in the runoff.
Communist candidate Janet Jara/AFP
Congratulations from Burek
Chilean President Gabriel Buric congratulated Monday in a speech to the press.
He added, “Next Sunday, December 14, Chile will once again elect the next president of our country who must govern the destiny of our country for the next four years.”
Jara seeks to follow up on the project of the outgoing Buric government, while Cast promised to form an “emergency government” to confront organized crime.
The traditional right-winger, Evelyn Matthey, who came in fifth place with 13.4% support, was the first to admit defeat and congratulated “those called to advance in the presidential race.”
Right-wing candidate José Antonio Cast / AP
“Our country demands democratic responsibility, real solutions to our big problems and the ability to dialogue,” he said, his voice breaking in a rapid-fire speech. Meanwhile, he winked at Kast’s candidacy. He predicted, “Now we go to the leadership… to congratulate him on that.”
During the election campaign, Jara, a former labor minister in the current administration, boasted of her achievements at the helm of the ministry and called for dialogue and unity, although she announced that she would take “strong” measures to strengthen public security, combat drug trafficking and control immigration.
He said, “I do not have any security contract… I am from the city (a poor neighborhood) and I know the harms of drugs.”
Meanwhile, Kast chose to set aside the controversial issues that had not allowed him access to the presidential seat four years earlier – such as abortion, equal marriage, or his admiration for the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) – to focus on an “emergency government” and a heavy fist against organized crime and irregular migration.
More than 15.7 million Chileans were called to the polls to elect their new governor for the next four years, as well as to renew the House of Representatives and elect part of the Senate.
The scourge of violence
Security proposals dominated the campaign from beginning to end, forcing Jara to abandon his ideas about social plans to talk about his crime-fighting strategies.
Unknown violence in Chile has displaced the desire for change that brought Buric to power four years ago, and led to the failure of his promise to change the constitution he inherited from Pinochet, after the social outbreak of 2019.
Murders have risen by 140% in the past decade, rising from a rate of 2.5 to 6 per 100,000 population in 2024, according to the government.
Meanwhile, last year the Public Prosecutor’s Office reported 868 kidnapping cases, a 76% increase from 2021.
Although these are low standards even around the world, the problem is “the arrival of organized crime and hitherto unknown crimes in our country, such as contract murders,” said Gonzalo Müller, director of the Center for Public Policy.
Main topics
Despite the ideological differences, the competitors’ projects are similar regarding the three central axes that dominated the election campaign: security, immigration, and economy.
Both have promised strong measures to stem the rise in crime rates, which include modernizing police forces and tightening laws against organized crime, as well as controlling the flow of immigration into Chile – where it is estimated that there are about 330,000 unregistered foreigners.
True to his forceful style, Kast warned that he would expel all those in an illegal situation in the country, some 18 million people, and urged them to “leave Chile today.”
About The Author
