When Janet Jara Roman (Santiago, 51) won the leftist primary in June, there were two big surprises. First, her vote was high, at 60% compared to social democrat Carolina Tuha (although turnout was low, 1,400,000 people). Another option would push the Communist Party to the front line of Chilean politics, which has an electoral performance of 6%, based on the number of elected councillors, which is how political forces in Chile are calibrated. For this reason, the first questions raised after the ruling party’s elections were whether Jara’s victory was real or whether it was linked to the Communist Party.
Carlos Peña, dean of Diego Portales University and one of Chile’s most influential columnists, was one of the first to take a definitive look: “It is not a triumph of ideology, but proof that personality and charisma matter in politics,” he said emphatically in this newspaper. But for sociologist and political scientist Alfredo Guignant, Jara’s candidacy and campaign “constitute a major anomaly”: “Chile must be the only country in the world where a communist candidate wins such relevant elections (primaries),” he said in June.
Joinant, a columnist for El Pais newspaper, sees the Jara case as an anomaly, because it occurs “at a time when the ideological winds in the world are in favor of the right (especially the right-wingers, the extremists, or simply the far-right).” Specifically, the main rival to the standard-bearer of the Left Bloc, which faces the elections with the support of nine parties, is Republican José Antonio Cast. She was first in the polls and headed to the second round with Ultra winning the runoff.
With Jara, it was the first time, since the return to democracy in 1990, that the Chilean Communist Party, which continues to define itself as Marxist-Leninist and has not removed the dictatorship of the proletariat from its doctrine, was able to obtain a competitive presidential nomination. His rapid rise in politics also made clear that the center-left and the left have not been able to renew their leadership since socialist Michelle Bachelet, who came to La Moneda twice (2006-2010, 2014-2018). The broad front, formed by President Gabriel Buric, did not reach: in the primaries, MP Gonzalo Winter, who is seeking re-election to parliament, barely got 9%.
Folk origin
The general manager, lawyer and master of public administration became known when she was Minister of Labor in Burić’s government, between March 2022 and April 2024. Her personality and charisma attracted attention, and because she was an interlocutor and negotiator with the opposition and the business community when she pushed in Congress for measures that were nothing but good news (while other ministries were dealing with the security crisis): the law reducing the working day to 40 hours per week; Historic increase in the minimum wage and pension reform. Although the Left could not put an end to the Pension Fund Managers (AFP), as the Presidential Council particularly wanted, Jara was practical in surrendering on this point to move forward with the project, which is considered the most important for the Buric government.
The candidate comes from a popular background, which distinguishes her from the other seven candidates: she lived through periods of poverty with her family. She is the daughter of an auto mechanic and a homemaker. He was born in El Cortijo, a town in Conchali, a municipality north of Santiago, and studied at a school, high school and public university. Since he started his career in La Moneda, he has highlighted this story as an added value: “I do not belong to the elite, but from Chile that gets up early to work.” She also emphasized this effort at the conclusion of her campaign on Tuesday in the Plaza de Maipo: “I never imagined that I would become a candidate for the Presidency of the Republic. Not because I thought I could not do it, but because it is unusual for someone who comes from El Cortijo to open the doors of the Government House.”
Jara reflects the lives of many Chileans. “I want things to change,” says Orlando Contreras, a 66-year-old retiree who supports her. “She is from the city, she is simple, she is an ordinary woman.” “I do this thinking about my granddaughters,” he adds. The candidate typically speaks to those who wake up at 6:00 a.m. every day to take the bus to work, and reiterates that she cares about Chileans “being able to make ends meet.” He also often uses simple, colloquial language, albeit ironically. In the last presidential debate, he said to his rivals: “There are fewer people on its streets than slippers,” referring to the people’s lack of knowledge.
These characteristics, especially their origin, were an essential element of their campaign, but they were not sufficient. In the CEP poll conducted in October, Jara ranked higher than Kast in terms of who cares most about people’s problems and also outperformed him in the health and education department. Although he prioritizes security, growth, and immigration control in his platform, the Republican outperforms him in the same poll in terms of who has greater leadership and will manage public order better; Growth, employment, crime and drug trafficking.
Communist worker
The candidate has been a member of the Presidential Council since she was 14 years old. Despite being party leader, her affiliation and complex relationship with the party leadership headed by Lautaro Carmona was a backpack she dragged throughout the election campaign. Although it showed itself as more moderate, many politicians who were part of the former Christian Democratic Coalition, the center-left coalition that ruled Chile between 1990 and 2010, including former Christian Democratic President Eduardo Frei Ruiz Tagle (1994-2000), were unable to support it: Chile is a country that looks with fear at failed experiments, hovering in particular over the specter of Venezuela. However, it is supported by the social democracy of the moderate left represented by Toha.
During Pinochet’s dictatorship (1973-1990), the Communist Party was persecuted and hundreds of its activists were killed and disappeared. In the 1980s, a group from the party, the Manuel Rodríguez National Front, took up arms – in 1986 it attacked Pinochet – and committed crimes even after the return to democracy. This subsequently caused him to distance himself from the left and the centre-left, which had fought the regime through democratic means: the general was defeated in a referendum in 1988. There is deep disagreement on the left over whether the end of the regime was achieved only by pen and paper, as communists sarcastically say.
During the Christian Democratic coalition, the Communist Party was the opposition, but it entered government for the first time during Bachelet’s second administration, in 2014. This was the case with Jara, who was her undersecretary for social security.
Jara, aware of the damage caused by his long struggle and the ideological positions of his party, distanced himself from the party on repeated occasions. He insisted that his nomination represents a broad coalition and not a party. She added: “I am not subject to the decisions of the Presidential Council.” He also tried to point out other differences, such as pointing out that Nicolas Maduro’s regime is an “authoritarian regime” (for Buric it is a dictatorship). Or, after saying in April that Cuba had a “democratic system different from ours,” which sparked much criticism, he declared in September that “it is clearly not a democracy.”
The big challenge that Yara faced was, firstly, to exceed at least this Sunday the 30% support rate enjoyed by Buric, which he did not achieve after counting at least 55% of the votes. Then, in the second round, he beat Kast. To do this, he needs to overcome the moderate center-left who dare not make a move in his favour.
At the end of the campaign, Jara asked his supporters to speak up even to those who think differently: “This is not just another election. This is an election where there are two very different models for the country.”
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