The presidential campaign in Chile officially concluded this Thursday with two massive demonstrations outside Santiago for the candidates who will compete in the elections on Sunday, December 14: José Antonio Kast, standard bearer of the right; and Jeannette Jara, the representative of the left.
Kast chose to close his campaign, focused on security, the economy and immigration control, in Temuco, in the Araucania region, where he launched his third presidential candidacy last September. This region is part of the southern macrozone, where conflict has raged since 1997 over Mapuche lands and has become more complex in recent years. This is an area strongly affected by rural violence, where the Republican’s muscular speech to fight against “terrorism” and “recover the territory” had a profound impact, becoming one of its bastions. The standard-bearer of the right, leader of the far-right Les Républicains party, obtained his best percentage in La Araucanía in the first round, with 32.57%, compared to 19.60% in Jara.
Kast arrived accompanied by his wife, Pía Adriasola, who acquired a more important role in the second round. He began his speech by thanking God, “who took care of us, guided and accompanied us”, as well as the outgoing parliamentarians elected last November. “The vast majority of people want peace and that is what we are going to bring: peace in Araucanía, with all those who want to collaborate; and prison for terrorists and violent people, because the first thing we want to do is to enforce the law,” he stressed. “We put all our heart into Araucanía, because it was a region struck by fear, by terror, and we wanted to reflect that.” In addition, Kast presented his iron team on stage on Sunday, which is part of the political project “which is about to win”, and thanked the support he received from the right-wing parties and the Yellows and Democrats, who define themselves as centrists.
The Republican, in a speech confident of his victory, reiterated his threat to illegal immigrants that they have 90 days left to leave the country and to fugitives from justice. “Every peso we spend looking for them, they will pay for it in prison,” he said. He also once again threw his darts against the government of Gabriel Boric, which according to him has generated “chaos, disorder and security” and which, if he wins, will work in reverse. And when he thanked the police, he said that unlike candidate Jara, they applauded the Carabinieri. The hundreds of supporters gathered shouted “no communism, no communism”. Kast added “without communism in La Moneda, but with communists in the country, who behave well.”
Kast had already held a campaign closing on Saturday in Concepción, in south-central Chile, where he again delivered his speech behind armored glass. During Tuesday’s debate, the last face-to-face between the two candidates, Jara took the opportunity to accuse him of living in a “glass box”, in reference to the protective measure he used during some of his meetings. Kast responded: “I suddenly have to use glass because there are people in other countries who have assassinated presidential candidates. What happens if something happens to me? So you’re going to say, actually I was right. They killed someone in Ecuador, in Colombia, there were attacks on others. Is that what you’re looking for?” The Republican later explained that he had been attacked several times during his three presidential campaigns.
Although a definitive closure in Santiago was considered, the idea was discarded in recent days and its strategy was prioritized during this second round, where it was heavily deployed in different regions of the country. In the first round, he culminated the campaign in the capital, taking a collective bath at the Movistar Arena stadium, in front of some 14,000 people, where he delivered the message that “the third time is the charm”, referring to his third attempt to reach the Moneda and that, according to the polls, it is very likely that he will succeed.
Jara: “There’s a lot at stake”
Jara said goodbye to his campaign in the Coquimbo region, about 460 kilometers north of Santiago, one of his electoral strongholds. Smiling and dressed in a sky blue suit, the candidate on the left took the stage around 9:00 p.m. deliver a speech in which she highlighted her achievements as former Minister of Labor in the Boric government, such as pension reform and reduction of the working day; invited to defend social rights; promised a “firm and determined hand” to fight crime, drug trafficking and corruption; and spoke about inequality in the country. “Some want us to believe that Chile is a country where resources are not enough and I want to tell them that Chile is a country that generates a lot of fruit and my interest is that all Chilean families have a small piece of these fruits. It is a thing of justice, it is something fundamental in a society”, he declared.
During his campaign closing ceremony, he gave a nod to the proposals of former candidate Franco Parisi, who came in third with 19% of the vote in the first round, such as the removal of the value-added tax on medicines. But he also highlighted his own proposals and called for people to vote with “joy, hope and conscience”.
Without mentioning it directly, Jara criticized Kast’s plans, calling him on one occasion “the other candidate.” “The sentences will be served by all criminals, whether they are 30 or 60 years old, this is how justice should work,” he said, referring to the possibility of a pardon for those convicted of human rights violations during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).
Jara, supported by nine parties, has been fighting to capture voters from the political center, the undecided and those disenchanted with traditional parties, since the first round, where the left obtained the worst result since 1990: 26.8%. Meanwhile, Kast, who received 23.95% of the vote, accompanied him in the second round and obtained the automatic support of moderate right groups, who had supported Evelyn Matthei (12%), and the ultra Johannes Kaiser, of the Libertarian Party (13.94%).
The hope of the left-wing candidate is in particular to seduce the voters of the populist Parisi, who called for leaving the ballot blank. “To those who think they will vote blank, talk to them, there is a lot at stake. We must move forward and not backward,” Jara concluded.
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