The candidate of the ruling party in chili, Jeannette JaraMember of the Communist Party and liberal-conservative José Antonio Kast They were preparing to face this Tuesday evening the last debate before the second presidential round on Sunday, which will decide who will replace Gabriel Boric in La Moneda.
The debate is organized by the National Television Association (Anatel) and will be broadcast from 9:00 p.m. local time on several open television channels.
Although the former labor minister in the Boric government won the first round with 26.63% of the vote, it is Kast who holds the best position in this runoff.
The former far-right MP received 24.25% of the vote on November 16, according to the last polls published before the election ban I would win a comfortable victory, Supported by the traditional right of former candidate Evelyn Matthei and the more radical extreme right of Johannes Kaiser, which together would make up more than 50%.
The last part of the campaign has taken on a more controversial tone than the first part, but has continued to maintain security and migration as the main issues and concerns of citizens, with controversial proposals such as threatening the ultra-conservatives to expel the 330,000 migrants in an irregular situation who live in the country.
Jara, who leads an unprecedented coalition ranging from the Christian Democrats to the Communist Party (PC), has done so tried to convince the undecided voter who does not want to give his vote to the extreme right, but has doubts about his candidacy due to his communist militancy and the unpopularity of the outgoing government, which ends with a meager 30% approval.
A crucial group that could cast doubt on Kast’s eventual majority are the former candidate’s voters. Franco Parisi, Right-wing populist who received 19% approval. However, in a controversial internal consultation – in which the total number of voters was not revealed – its militants decided votar zero or empty in the runoff.
This is the third time Kast has run for the presidency of Chile. Four years ago, he lost the runoff election to Boric, a former student leader who became president at age 36 on a promise to amend the constitution inherited from the Augusto Pinochet regime to ensure better access to health and education after the social outbreak of 2019, when more than a million citizens took to the streets.
But the two attempts to reform the constitution failed because they were seen as too radical – the first to the left, then to the right – and the promise of a more just society remained half-fulfilled.
The election campaign ends this Thursday and massive closings of the main candidates in Santiago are planned for this week.
More than 15.6 million voters are called upon to take part in compulsory presidential elections.
The president who emerges from the elections will take power on March 11 and will have to contend with a majority-less legislature in which the right-wing and far-right bloc is two representatives away from 50% in Congress and in which the votes of right-wing populists will be crucial.
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