Chile will celebrate its presidential elections next Sunday, coinciding with the parliamentary elections, and the two candidates nominated to advance to the second round on December 14 are the communist Janet Jara, the sole representative of President Gabriel Buric’s ruling party, and the far-right Jose Antonio Caste, leader of the Republican Party. It is the political scenario that has been installed in the Andean country after four years of a leftist government, led by a new generation, that of Boric, who came to power after the social outbreak of 2019, amid high expectations from citizens and a radical rhetoric that promised major transformations. But as time passed and circumstances weighed on, the administration was forced to adjust its ambitions after major defeats – Chileans in 2022 rejected a proposal for a new constitution supported by the left – and a change in the priorities of a complex citizenry disillusioned with politics.
Chile Buric gives way to the country of extremism. This is the first time, since the return to democracy in 1990, that the Communist Party has taken on the political responsibility of leading a coalition. Never in the past 35 years have political forces that appreciated the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet had greater access to La Moneda.
Writer Patricio Fernández explains the change Chile has seen between 2021, when Boric was elected, and this in 2025: “The main topics of public discourse were social rights (pensions, education, health, housing), environmental demands, the rights of women, minorities, indigenous people and other cultural diversity. Nothing of all of that remains. Today the debate is centered around security and economic growth.” author On the go. Notes on social outbreaks in Chile (2020), adds: “Anger and fear are the main protagonists of this election. Not collective projects. And so is disillusionment.”
Moderation is going through complicated times in Chile. In the primaries for Buric’s ruling party, it was thought that the government’s interior minister, Karolina Tuha, from the centre-left, would win easily. Heir to the political tradition embodied in the defunct coalition (1990-2010), Toha views Boric’s government as a continuation of Chilean progressivism, not an interruption. But last June, he lost to his cabinet colleague Jara by 28% to 60%. Something similar happens on the opposite sidewalk. For several months the favorite candidate was Evelyn Mathie, a historical figure from the traditional right, the sector that led the transition to democracy from the opposition. But polls show that both Kast and liberal Johannes Kaiser – who is even to Kast’s right – will edge her out in Sunday’s election. Mathie was unable to successfully distinguish himself from the faces New right What voters saw in Chile was primarily a dispute over how extreme the rhetoric was. Matthi, a representative of the modern right, promised criminals “prison or cemetery.”
“A certain section of the elites was dreaming until January of a second round of mathe-toha, which was like a return to the 1990s, and many people saw that movie – Chile is back to normal – but this completely ignores the fact that Chile is not in that category, so the rhetoric of unity and agreements is completely inadequate,” says Daniel Mansoy, a Chilean academic and intellectual.
All three right-wing representatives were supporters of the Pinochet dictatorship, although Mathi – the daughter of a general member of the junta – rejected the human rights violations committed during the regime’s 17 years (but stressed in April that the deaths in the first years were “inevitable”). In this, Kast’s third attempt to reach La Moneda, he tried to avoid Pinochet, but said in his 2017 election campaign that if the dictator were alive, he would vote for him. Kaiser, who supports the 1973 coup, said he would support a new coup under the same circumstances “with all the consequences,” including deaths. If the right wins these presidential elections, it will be the first time since the return to democracy that a supporter has voted for the dictator. Yes In the 1988 referendum, he ruled this South American country. The only right-wing president that Chile has had over the past thirty-five years was the late Sebastián Pinera (2010-2014 and 2018-2022), who voted in favor of no In the historic referendum that ended the military regime.
Chile’s issues in 2025 are different: Chileans’ priorities, as surveys respectively show, are crime, assaults and robberies. Homicide rates have doubled in the past decade, although they remain low compared to most countries in the region. Chile, which has kept organized crime under control like countries like Uruguay and Costa Rica, has been unable to weather the storm of strengthening illegal markets. Chile is afraid. For example, only 39% of its population feels safe walking alone at night, putting it in 138th place, just behind Zimbabwe, in a poll conducted by US company Gallup in 144 districts. Thus, the main themes of this presidential campaign were order and security, economic growth and control of illegal immigration, issues that the right navigates more easily than the left. These elections are taking place in a context in which 24% of Chileans sympathize with the right, the highest level in history, according to the survey conducted by the Center for Public Studies (CEP), 36% with the center, and 20% with the left. Another number that peaked was support for the idea that an authoritarian regime might be preferable in some circumstances (23%). Fifty-two years after the military coup against Allende, the new Chile has become less appreciative of democracy.
Chilean democratic institutions, which people do not trust, are not responsive to citizens. Chile has no intermediate processing pathways, explains David Altman, a professor of political science, referring to systems through which citizens can be heard and decisions made in response to the actions of the political class. This is what makes Chilean politics seem, on many occasions, to revolve on the same axis and not move forward. A Locked policyAs social researcher Katia Araujo says, she confirms that in Chile there are elections and everyone says that the country is purely authoritarian, and the other comes, and the country is completely supportive, epic and we are all subjects ready for the revolution. “It’s neither this nor that.” For the academic, “the main problem is the presence of irritation, anger and indignation.” This is one of the reasons why the opposition has always won Chilean presidential elections for twenty years, since 2006.
But what is at stake? Answers the sociologist Eugenio Tironi, who asserts that democracy is not in danger and that the general course of the country has not been decided: “The real point of disagreement this Sunday is another point: how the political council will be arranged for the session that begins. It is an election that will determine hegemony, identities and connections of power, on the left and on the right. The viability of governance in the coming years will depend on this system.”
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