Polling stations open and the country decides who will be the next president

On a cold and gray morning in Santiago, with rain forecast for the afternoon and a weather panorama unprecedented here at this time, thousands of Chileans are already preparing to elect the next president chiliin a drain characterized by polarization.

Unlike the first round, when there were eight presidential candidates, this time there are only two names on the ballot: that of the communist Jeannette JaraRepresentative of the broad center-left government coalition and the ultra-conservatives José Antonio Kast.

And although four weeks ago the 51-year-old Jara won with 26.8% of the vote over Kast, who received 23.9% of the vote, it is now the former ultra-Catholic MP, 59, who, according to all polls, has the best chance. A decisive change is already foreseeable here, which will bring the president, who has been the furthest right since the end of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship 35 years ago, to the presidential palace in La Moneda.

With the promise of a strong hand to fight the growing crime wave in the country, one of the main demands of the population, Kast put his plans into action deport almost 330,000 illegal migrantsof which the majority are Venezuelans, and attack the crimes linked to foreign drug trafficking groups that have entered Chile in recent years.

Jara, former labor minister under Gabriel Boric, promises to raise the minimum wage and defend pensions. Although he also promised a firm hand against crime and despite his communist militancy since his youth, throughout the election campaign he tried to be moderate and distance himself from the current government, which in the end only achieved a meager popularity of almost 30%.

“The country is falling apart,” Kast says again and again during his third attempt at the presidency as the candidate of the Republican Party he founded five years ago.

In his public events, behind bulletproof glass that has sparked controversy – he argues that he should protect himself, but Jara argues that she is not afraid of Chileans – this former MP portrays Chile almost as a failed state dominated by the drug trade and moving away from the “economic miracle” that made it one of Latin America’s most successful nations.

According to the latest Ipsos poll from October, 63% of Chileans say crime and violence are their top concern, followed by low growth. Although the country is still much safer than others in the region, experts point out The feeling of fear in Chile is much greater than the actual crime figures suggest.

Homicides have doubled in the last decade, although they have been declining for two years. However, there is an increase in violent crimes such as kidnapping and extortion that has accompanied the arrival of Venezuelan, Colombian and Peruvian gangs such as the Aragua Platoon in the country.

If the polls are right and Kast wins a majority of the vote tonight (predictions put him ahead by between 10 and 18 points over Jara), it would be a sign that Chileans are looking for change after a government they see as having failed on the reforms it promised when it took office four years ago.

Boric, a former student activist who took office amid the winds of change demanded by society after the unprecedented social protests of 2019, failed to implement reforms that promised better opportunities for the middle class in a country historically marked by inequalities and difficulties in accessing health services or quality public education.

Although Jara tried during the election campaign to highlight some of the social improvements achieved in these years, in particular the increase in the minimum wage and the shortening of the working day, which she herself promoted as labor minister, there is a climate of disappointment and skepticism here.

For this reason, many analysts here point out that in the first round many Chileans expressed their rejection of traditional politicians by voting for the independent Franco Parisi, who campaigned with the slogan “neither Fachos nor Comunachos”.

The right-wing populist and leader of the People’s Party received 19.7% of the vote in the first round and became a strong figure, in an unexpected third place, while the polls placed him significantly further back.

“The vote for Parisi must be understood as an angry vote, a rejection of traditional politicians, both on the left and on the right,” political scientist Marco Moreno of the Central University of Chile told Clarín.

In addition, this is the first mandatory presidential election in Chile since the end of the Pinochet dictatorship. That’s why many people were “forced” to vote. Around 15.7 million people are registered and this Sunday a similar turnout is expected as in the first round, which was just over 13 million, i.e. 85% of the voter list.