First round. On November 16, presidential and parliamentary elections will be held in Chile, which will renew the entire House of Representatives (155) and half of the Senate (25 out of 50). Regarding the presidential elections, it is very likely – and practically certain – that neither candidate will receive the necessary support (50% plus one of the votes) to win the presidency outright on Sunday for the 2026-2030 term. Therefore, there will be a second round scheduled for next December 14.
Only four with real options. There are eight candidates who will be on the ballot, but only four have real options. From left to right, they are: Janet Jara (communist militant, sole candidate of President Gabriel Buric’s ruling party), Evelyn Matthe (of the UDI party, candidate of the traditional right-wing party of Chile Vamos, as well as the centrist forces Amarillos and the Democrats), José Antonio Cast (leader of the Republican Party, conservative far-right) and Johannes Kaiser (of the National Liberal Party, far-right). One of the unknowns is the position reached by Franco Baresi, the populist candidate, who in this third attempt to reach La Moneda, according to opinion polls, received about 10%, placing him in fifth place. If he defeats one of the right-wing candidates and comes in fourth place, it will be a surprise and good news for the People’s Party he leads.
Who goes to the polls? Opinion polls, at least before the ban begins on November 1, show Jara will come in first and Kast in second, so both will be in the second round in another month. Therefore, if this scenario does not happen on Sunday night, it will be surprising. Can Kaiser beat Kast? It cannot be completely ruled out – in poll averages he was only four points lower, according to Electoral Radar – but it does not seem likely. In any case, it is an open scenario. Can Kast beat Gaara and come first? Nothing is impossible in politics, but this scenario does not seem likely either, because Jara enjoys the support of most of the Chilean left, and at least the supporters of President Buric, who total about 30%.
The relative importance of arriving first. It is important to obtain the first majority, although this fact has no necessary connection with the second round. Everything indicates that Jara will have the highest approval rating in 16th place, which does not mean that he has a better chance of beating Kast in the runoff, at least according to what the polls showed before the ban. There is expected to be a distance of between five and nine points this Sunday between Jara and Kast – between first and second – so outside of this range it will be considered eye-catching.
If the cast does not pass. In the unlikely scenario that Kast does not go to the runoff, but to the liberal czar, shifting votes from the right is not entirely guaranteed given the runoff. This means that not all of the right will vote for the Kaiser. This appears to be the best scenario for Jara: the Liberal Party, not the Republican Party, takes over on December 14. But even so, Jara will not win against the Kaiser, at least according to the polls.
The struggle for third and fourth places. The dispute for third and fourth places is open. A few weeks ago, it looked as if Mathy would finish third, but that picture has been thrown into doubt with Kaiser’s rise, which opinion polls began to show before November 1. If Kaiser, and not Matthei, remains in third place, it will be a huge blow to Chile Vamos, of the traditional right. Not to mention that Mathy came in fifth place and was outperformed by Parisi. Does she have options to go to a runoff? Very few, though, as their supporters resort to last-minute moderate voices that won’t lean toward a communist or extremist hardliner like Kast.
Second round. No opinion poll showed Jara winning over any of the right-wing candidates in the second round. The open question here is whether this scenario can be reversed within four weeks, until December 14th. On the left itself they accept that the challenge is very complex.
Parliament. Parliamentary elections will be of utmost importance. According to Unholster’s forecasts, the right will reach a majority in both the House of Representatives (85 out of 155) and the Senate (26 out of 50), something that has not happened in this country for 20 years. According to this analysis, the main increase will be the agreement between Kast Republicans and Kaiser’s liberals, which will move from 15 to 29 representatives and from no senators in 2017 – when the same constituencies were elected as now – to two. Meanwhile, the report of LarraínVial, a company specializing in providing financial consulting, confirms that “if the right had been united in the parliamentary elections (…) they would have had 90 out of 155 parliamentarians and 28 or 29 out of 50 senators, that is, the quorum of the seven necessary to change the constitution of the House of Representatives and the Senate.”
a class. Total registration stands at 15.7 million voters. Estimates indicate that, as in the last elections – the exit referendums for the constitutional processes and the 2024 municipal elections – this time it will reach 85%, meaning that about 13 million out of 15.7 million will actually vote. It therefore represents five million more than those who participated in the 2021 elections, as about eight million people went to the polls with a participation rate of about 50%.
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