Jeannette Jara, a moderate communist, came in first in Chile’s presidential election on Sunday, followed by right-wing candidate José Antonio Kast, according to official results that accounted for nearly 53% of the ballots counted.
Rural areas are increasingly developing. It is time for citizens to freely express themselves to determine the fate of Chile. Ches🇱
All to choose! 🗳️ pic.twitter.com/1UkiObiNYx
— José Antonio Kast Rist 🖐️©🇱 (@joseantoniokast) November 16, 2025
The former Labor Minister won 26.58% of the vote, compared with his ultraconservative opponent’s 24.32%, according to figures published by the General Election Service (Servel). Barring a last-minute reversal, the two candidates should meet in a runoff on December 14.
“Don’t let fear harden your hearts,” said the candidate from the ruling center-left coalition, who took first place in the first round based on the results of more than 77% of ballots counted, ahead of José Antonio Kast, who was the favorite for the second round due to voting delays.
“We will rebuild our country,” said the right-wing candidate, José Antonio Kast, who finished second but was announced as the favorite for the runoff. The vote report was in fact very favorable for him, especially given the good vote tally achieved by Johannes Kaiser (13%), a libertarian lawmaker who has made strong progress in opinion polls in recent weeks, who is often described as Chile’s version of Argentine President Javier Milei.
The results “are bad news for Jeannette Jara,” said Rodrigo Arellano, an analyst at Chile’s Development University. “All of his team’s projections are expected to be over 30%,” he explained, noting that “all the opposition candidates are ahead almost twice as high as him.”
Radical right-wing groups for the first time since Pinochet
For the first time since the end of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship in 1990, the radical right could return to power. Although the copper and lithium-rich country remains one of the safest on the continent, crime has increased significantly. The murder rate rose from 2.5 to 6, in 2004, per 100,000 residents in a decade and 868 kidnappings were recorded last year, up 76% compared to 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 Pinochet.
Public concern is mainly due to the emergence of forms of organized crime that were “until recently unknown in the country, such as sponsored murders”, notes Gonzalo Müller, director of the Chilean Center for Political Studies. The campaign was dominated by security speeches, which Jeannette Jara herself supported, without being particularly convincing.
We demand unity without despair, with respect and democratic conviction. Chile needs sumar, no division. While other people in Siembran Odio, we work for a company that is at the front. Ches🇱 #UnidadPorChile pic.twitter.com/vaxUl2Hedu
— Jeannette Jara Román (@jeannette_jara) November 12, 2025
A member of the Communist Party since he was a teenager, the 51-year-old former Labor Minister claims to have “no complexes when it comes to security”, particularly defending strengthened migration controls. “Just exacerbating fear is not enough to rule a country,” he said after voting in Santiago.
José Antonio Kast, 59, the son of a former German soldier who served in World War II and later emigrated to Chile, is running for president for the third time. His speech targeted 337,000 foreigners in irregular situations, the majority of them Venezuelans, in the context of concerns over the arrival of foreign criminal groups. The majority of Chileans associate the increase in crime with irregular immigration.
“We need unity to face issues (…) related to security,” said the Republican leader, a father of nine, while voting in the capital. He promised mass expulsions, building a border wall, strengthening police weapons and deploying troops in critical areas.
