Jeannette Jara, a moderate communist, is expected to face far-right candidate José Antonio Kast in Chile, according to preliminary results published Sunday, November 16, in a second round of presidential elections dominated by concerns over crime and irregular migration.
The candidate from the ruling center-left coalition took 26.58% of the vote, compared with his ultraconservative opponent’s 24.32%, according to official results that accounted for nearly 53% of the votes counted. Barring a last-minute reversal, the two candidates should meet in a runoff on December 14. However, polls show that Jeannette Jara will be defeated by a right-wing or far-right candidate, due to the delay in voting.
Jeannette Jara urged voters last night not to let rising crime push them toward the right during the runoffs in December. “Don’t let fear harden your heart”he said.
José Antonio Kast promised Sunday night to “rebuild” the country after four years of center-left rule.
This result “is bad news for Jeannette Jara”comments for Agence France-Presse Rodrigo Arellano, analyst at Chile’s Development University. “All his team projections are over 30%”he explained, further emphasizing the point “all opposition candidates are ahead almost twice as much as him”.
For the first time since the end of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship in 1990, the radical right could return to power. Polling stations begin to close at 6 p.m. local time (10 p.m. in Paris), paving the way for the vote count, at the end of a day marked by long queues for this mandatory vote. More than 15.6 million voters were asked to decide between eight candidates.
Crime increases
Jeannette Jara, the candidate of the ruling center-left coalition, topped the polls, ahead of her right-wing rival José Antonio Kast. But in a possible second round, he was defeated by a right-wing or far-right candidate, due to voting delays.
The far-right is also represented by Johannes Kaiser, of the National Libertarian Party, who is often seen as Chile’s version of Argentine President Javier Milei and is rising in opinion polls.
Although the copper and lithium-rich country remains one of the safest on the continent, crime has increased significantly. The murder rate jumped from 2.5 to 6 per 100,000 residents in a decade and kidnappings reached 868 cases in 2024, up 76% compared with 2021, according to authorities.
The unprecedented violence has clouded the aspirations for change that brought leftist President Gabriel Boric to power in 2022 and his promise, ultimately abandoned, of a new Constitution to replace the one inherited from Augusto Pinochet.
Public concern is mainly caused by the emergence of organized forms of crime “until then it was unknown in the country, such as sponsored murder”said Gonzalo Müller, director of the Chilean Center for Political Studies.
At the same time, the country experienced an influx of migrants, whose numbers doubled in seven years to reach 8.8% of the total population. The majority of Chileans associate the increase in crime with irregular immigration.
Promise of mass expulsion
Therefore, the campaign was dominated by security discourse, supported by Jeannette Jara herself. Aged 51 and a member of the Communist Party since he was a teenager, the former labor minister assured that he did not “no security concerns”. He defended strengthened migration controls, while promising Chileans “security to be able to meet life’s needs”in the context of rising costs of living.
His main rival, José Antonio Kast, 59, the son of a former soldier who served in Hitler’s army and emigrated to Chile after the Second World War, is running for president for the third time. He put 337,000 foreigners in an unusual situation in the country, the majority of Venezuelans, who were at the heart of his speech, exploiting the climate of concern linked to the arrival of foreign criminal groups such as Tren de Aragua, which is involved in kidnapping and extortion.
The ultra-conservative group promises mass expulsions, building a border wall, increasing police powers and deploying the army in critical areas.
Advancing in the election and now in third place, Johannes Kaiser, 49, could pull off a surprise and advance to the second round scheduled for December 14. Also from Germany, he delivered the most radical speech of the eight candidates speaking out against irregular migrants, promising to expel them but also send those with criminal records to the huge prisons built by President Nayib Bukele in El Salvador.
This position weakened the traditional right-wing candidate Evelyn Matthei, whose trap clips broadcast late in the campaign and widely mocked did not succeed in reversing the trend.
The vote is considered a key indicator for the South American left, which was recently defeated in Argentina and Bolivia, and faces decisive election deadlines in Colombia and Brazil in 2026. Because voting is mandatory (with the risk of fines), high turnout is expected. Some 15.6 million voters were also asked to renew the Chamber of Deputies and half of the Senate.
