In Chile’s presidential election, left-wing candidate Jeannette Jara and ultra-right politician José Antonio Kast are ahead in the first round of voting and are likely to advance to the election. Second round of elections enter. After counting more than 50 percent of the vote, Jara got 26.58 percent and Kast 24.32 percent on Sunday. A second round of elections in the race to replace leftist President Gabriel Boric will take place on December 14.
Far-right candidate Kast believes his chances are good for a runoff: the voters of the other two candidates on the far right – the right-wing radical Johannes Kaiser and the conservative Evelyn Matthei, both of whom also have German ancestry – could, according to his calculations, support Kast in the second round.
Right-wing candidates want to drive undocumented immigrants out of the country
Kast, who is running as a Republican and running for president for the third time, has announced that he will expel some 337,000 undocumented people – mostly Venezuelans – out of the country. The 59-year-old lawyer and father of nine will become the first right-wing president this year Chile since the end of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973–1990).
Although Jara had been a member of the Communist Party since his youth, he was considered part of the social democratic wing and ran as a candidate of the ruling center-left coalition. The 51-year-old former labor and social affairs minister announced during the election campaign that he would tighten controls on illegal immigration and fight rising crime.
After casting his vote in Santiago, he assured that he had “no complications regarding security.” “Inflicting fear alone is not enough to rule a country,” he said. “If I am elected president, I hope that security in meeting the needs of life will become a reality in Chile, as will security in living in calmer regions.”
Compulsory voting in Chile
The most important topics in the election campaign were the fight against criminal gangs and immigration. During President Boric’s term, the murder rate fell by ten percent, but increasing violence from criminal gangs was a concern for many Chileans. The country also recorded an increase in migration numbers. The majority of Chileans attribute the increase in crime to illegal immigration.
In Chile, about 15.6 million eligible voters were asked to cast their ballots in the first round of the presidential election. At the same time, members of the South American country’s Chamber of Deputies were also re-elected. In addition, half the seats in the new Senate were allocated. For the first time since 2012, voting is mandatory in Chile. Failure to do this will result in fines – hence the high turnout expected.
