Since the candidate of the Chilean left, the communist Jeannette Jara, presented herself in the second round with the Republican José Antonio Kast, today standard bearer of the entire right, the message transmitted from her sector, the ruling party, is that the election is open. This is underlined even if the polls, even before the legal ban – their distribution is prohibited in the 15 days preceding the elections – say the opposite. The wind is in favor of the far right, which explains why the former Minister of Labor under Gabriel Boric changed her usual tone – she is recognized for her charisma – in the last two forums in which she participated, for a more confrontational tone with her political rival in search of votes. anti-Kastand also those of the popular world.
In a recent video, Jara attacks Kast by recalling that when he was a deputy, between 2002 and 2014, “of the 1,500 sessions he had to attend, he was missing 625”, so “he charged millions for doing almost nothing”. For this reason, he added, “when he talks about reducing public spending, it is important that he demonstrates self-criticism.” “He has been in Congress for 16 years and has not passed any law relevant to the people. He only knows how to oppose: he has voted against profit in education, the divorce law, the morning after pill and also against the Cholito Law (animal abuse).”
Jara herself was responsible for conveying the optimistic message regarding the second round of December 14: “This election is completely open, despite what some want to install; the result is completely unpredictable,” she declared a week ago when relaunching her campaign. “We had a year 2025 where we were told that everything was impossible: pension reform in January; having a primary in June and winning it. And then a first presidential round (…) I don’t believe in the impossible, I believe in work, in commitment, in convictions and in dreams.”
The candidate is supported by nine parties and on November 16 she had the first majority, 26.8%. Kast received 23.95%, but that same evening he became the standard-bearer of the three right-wing parties which, unlike the left, which held primaries, competed separately but quickly united after the elections. The Republican had the automatic support of Evelyn Matthei (12%), from the traditional right, and the libertarian Johannes Kaiser (13.9%), more extreme than Kast. This implies that if we add up their percentages, they total 50% and this is precisely why Jara’s path to La Moneda is so complex: in 28 days, of which he has six remaining, he will have to conquer, against the clock, new voters and reach 50% plus one of the votes required for victory.
According to what Francisco Vidal, one of its spokespersons, told EL PAÍS, in the Cadem survey, before the ban, Jara experienced a rebound, with 42% of voting intentions. “We have recovered 15 points and we need to recover at least eight in the remaining days to reach the magic number, which is half plus one. I am sure that if we continue like this, we will get there,” he said. But he also admitted that the “problem as a left and center-left” is that the radical right “has entered the popular world, which has always been an expression of support for the left over the last 80 years.”
But another of his spokespersons, the socialist deputy Raúl Leiva, was more cautious: “I hope we win. And if we don’t, let it be with the narrowest possible margin,” he declared on Saturday in The Third.
As soon as he appeared in the tiebreaker, on the night of November 16, Jara asked voters to “don’t let fear freeze your heart” and immediately winked at the voters of the leader of the Popular Party (PDG), the former populist standard-bearer Franco Parisi, who came third with 19% by approving, with praise, his proposal to refund VAT on medicines. The next day she started with a territorial deployment across different regions of the country, but before that she went through three morning programs, mixing entertainment and services, in search of the popular vote.
This is how this new stage of the campaign began. But, at the beginning, he experienced a setback within his team. On November 20, four days after the election, Jara asked his main advisor and campaign strategist during the official primaries, Soc, to resign.Yothe scientist Darío Quiroga, for having published statements that the candidate considered classist towards the activists of the CEO. Although Quiroga gave these opinions in April during a broadcast streamingwe remember just when Jara was giving signals to Parisian voters. It was added that one of the artists who supported her during the presentation of her new commission, the urban singer Balbi El Chamakowas dropped a few hours later because he had a domestic violence (VIF) court case.
Despite these episodes, the candidate managed to secure significant support. The president of the Socialist Party (PS), Senator Paulina Vodanovic, succeeded him as campaign director and added meetings with two key figures of the socialist left: one with former president Michelle Bachelet (2006-2010, 2014-2018) and another with Luisa Durán, wife of former president Ricardo Lagos (2000-2006), who in January 2024 retired from public life at 85.
In addition, he had several other supports, including that of Boric’s former Interior Minister, the social democrat Carolina Tohá, whom Jara defeated in the left-wing primaries: he accompanied her in various activities and emphasized that Kast is a politician who, in his career “has shown that he neither knows nor wants to build agreements.” Former Finance Minister Mario Marcel also joined his group of economists, but as an outsider. The gesture is more than relevant, since Marcel, even if he always said that he would vote for Jara, that he would do so with apprehension: “the role of the PC in his possible government”, he noted at the end of September in EL PAÍS.
He also has the support of several popular left-wing mayors, such as Tomás Vodanovic of Maipú and Matías Toledo, of Maipú, the most voted in Chile in the municipal elections of October 2024. And he added artists like Mon Laferte, intellectuals and scientists, like the astronomer Teresa Paneque. And to the former figures of the ex-Concertación, the center-left coalition which governed Chile between 1990 and 2010, including its spokesperson Francisco Vidal and the former Minister of the Economy of the Christian Democrat Patricio Aylwin (1990-1994), the socialist Carlos Ominami.
During this period, Jara had two public meetings with Kast. One of them was at a social forum to talk about poverty. Another, the debate, last Wednesday, promoted by the Association of Broadcasters of Chile (Archi), in which he accused for the second time the economic advisor of the Republican, Jorge Quiroz, for his relationship with cases of collusion occurring in Chile. On both occasions he showed a harsher tone, which marked his period towards the tiebreaker.
According to the citizen panel of the University of Development (UDD), which surveyed 1,200 people after the Archi debate, 41% responded that Jara was better and 40% responded that Kast. 53% said it strengthened their preference and 41% said it had no influence.
The next and final debate will take place on December 9, five days before the elections, organized by the National Television Association (Anatel).
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