More than 15.6 million Chileans will go to the polls this Sunday to elect their next president, hoping that whoever takes power in March will respond to their most urgent demands. These focus on the fight against crime, … economic growth and control of irregular immigration.
The two candidates facing each other in this second round, the right-wing opposition candidate José Antonio Kast and the official left-wing candidate Jeannette Jarafocused their entire campaign on these issues. While Kast blames the country’s current situation on the administration of Gabriel BoricJara distances herself from it by postulating a renewal.
After almost a year of campaigning, which began at the end of 2024 when the former mayor of Chile Vamos Evelyn Mathei He resigned from his post to launch the electoral race, the voters return to vote. They do this under the law, which guarantees high participation which, in the first round, reached 85.4%.
The two candidates met this Tuesday during the last televised presidential debate. In the opinion of analysts and political leaders, this is the most aggressive of all those experienced since the return to democracy. During this face-to-face meeting, Jara urged Kast to clarify a series of measures announced and which, in his opinion, were “little support in reality”. He responded that the change that will occur on March 11, 2026 is based on the irrevocable decision to lead Chile with order and determination, supporting institutions such as the Carabineros (police) and ceasing to be negligent.
A few hours before the opening of the vote, the president of the Socialist Party and spokesperson for Jara, Senator Paulina Vodanovicsaid the election “is not a plebiscite for the government.” For his part, the social democratic senator Jaime Quintanamember of the Party for Democracy (PPD), recognized “moderate optimism” in favor of his candidate for this second round.
“I think that in this the electorate can always surprise. Although there is a certain triumphalism in certain commandments, I believe that each election expresses in a certain way a certain novelty,” assured Quintana.
At least eight points ahead
The latest polls were released on Monday. which confirm Kast’s victory by more than eight points in front of Jara. The Cadem poll records the lowest limit for the Republican: 54% against 46% for the former minister. In addition, it includes a fact that all studies corroborate: more than 64% of Chileans think that the opponent will be the next president of Chile.
The electoral analyst Pepe Authwho made various projections transferring the votes to Kast and Jara from the other losing presidential candidates in the first round, claims that the final result will be 58.5% for the Republican and 41.5% for the communist activist.
Auth points out to ABC that even if we transfer all the votes from Marco Enriquez Ominami, Harold Mayne-Nicholls And Eduardo Artes to Jara and also gave him a percentage of the libertarian’s votes Johannes Kaiser, Evelyn Mathei and the populist Franco Parisi For this one, “this is not enough for the official candidate”. According to their calculations, invalid and blank votes would be 12.2%.
“Even after transferring all the left-wing votes from the first round, this is not enough for the official candidate Jeannette Jara”
Pepe Auth
Election analyst
The big unknown is how many these invalid votes will ultimately reach. In this sense, the leader of the Popular Party, Franco Parisi, who came third in the first round with almost 20% support, requested a void vote because he was excluded from this second round.
Without making electoral calculations, the sociologist Axel Callisdirector of the Tú Influyes center, tells this newspaper that, beyond the fact that the forecasts do not come true, the unforeseeable would be that Jose Antonio Kast won with a big difference or, on the contrary, the result was close. He also argues that the surprise could come from the number of invalid and blank votes because, if they were close to two million, they would indicate that Parisi has influence.
The distance that is established between the two competitors, Callis specifies, will have an effect on the future of the next government because, if he were the president with the most votes, that is to say his voters totaled more than those of the loser, null and white (a total electoral majority), he would find himself in a position of power which “could make him dizzy”.
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