With 77.7% counted, the Republican José Antonio Kast came in second place in the presidential elections with 24.1% of the votes, after the candidate of the left, the communist militant Jeannette Jara, who won the elections with 26.6%. This result confirms what the polls predicted: Chile will have to choose between two extremes on December 14th. With three right-wing candidates, these elections are presented as the primaries of the sector, where the ultra-conservative takes over as leader. The libertarian Johannes Kaiser came in fourth place (13.9%) and the bet of the traditional right, Evelyn Matthei, was the big loser of the day, ranking in fifth place, with 12.7%. Although not all votes are transferable, political scientists warn, the right begins the race for the second round with a minimum threshold of 51%.
After taking note of his defeat, Matthei went to the Kast command accompanied by several exponents of the traditional right to give him his support and ask voters to vote for him. The Republican acknowledged the differences he had with the candidates in his sector, but underlined that “these differences have no comparison with what we have before us: and we must avoid the continuity of a bad government, perhaps the worst in the democratic history of Chile.” “I would stick to the point that Evelyn said to ask for unity, to make oneself available for a cause, which is not the cause of a candidate, it is the cause of Chile”.
The president of the Republican Party, Arturo Squella, said that the results are “relatively expected” regarding Kast and Jara’s passage to the second round, and that “obviously” they are very happy. The difference between the two is only two points. “We were surprised by what happens from third place down,” he noted, alluding to right-wing populist Franco Parisi’s third place (19%), Kaiser’s fourth place and Matthei’s fifth place.
Kast goes to the run-off to face the candidacy, as in 2021, but with the wind in favor of the right. In the elections four years ago, Chile emerged from the social epidemic and the main topics of public debate were social rights (pensions, education, healthcare, housing), the rights of women, indigenous populations and the climate emergency. This time, the political discussion – in line with the main concerns of Chileans – concerns crime, immigration control and economic growth, issues in which the right moves more easily than the left.
Strategically, the Republican focused his campaign on these three axes, leaving under the carpet his ultra-conservative positions on individual freedoms and his admiration for the legacy of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990). “If Pinochet were alive he would vote for me,” he has said in the past. For many experts, these positions, especially those that could mean a setback in women’s rights, were key to her defeat against left-wing militant Gabriel Boric. If the right were to win these presidential elections, it would be the first time since the return to democracy that a supporter of the dictator, who voted Yes In the 1988 plebiscite he governed Chile.
Unlike the previous time, Kast also has a formation further to the right than the republicans, Johannes Kaiser’s National Libertarian Party. This means that in the next four weeks Kast will have to negotiate with the traditional right, of a more liberal and moderate character, and with the far right of libertarians. Kaiser had already announced that he would support the right-wing candidate elected on Sunday, but also warned that to be part of a government “they have to take care of those things that are impossible for us to do.” These include reducing taxes, eliminating all housing contributions (not just the first one), reducing the size of the state and institutional reforms.
There are those who argue, in Kast’s circle, that if the Republican were to win the presidential elections, with a right-wing majority in parliament, there would be pressure from his own people to discuss political issues valuable agenda to Congress. Since the Republican Party has never governed, it is not known what its negotiating capacity will be to carry out measures with the support of Chile Vamos and Libertarians, but experts point out that its ability to reach agreements is not one of its characteristics. They demonstrated this in the second attempt at a new Constitution of Chile, which they conducted in 2023, and which failed just like the first.
