Presidential election in Chile: tight race expected

A social democrat with communist roots and an ultra-right Pinochet fan – the two favorite candidates for Chile’s presidential elections could not be more different. According to opinion polls, after Sunday’s first round, the election will not be decided until December 14 in a runoff between left-wing Jeannette Jara and right-wing nationalist José Antonio Kast.

Unless right-wing extremist Johannes Kaiser, who finished third in the polls, catches up. A look at the presidential candidates:

Jeannette Jara, a child from a working-class neighborhood, became involved in the Communist Party as a teenager. Today this is associated with the social democratic wing. “He presented himself as a deviant,” says his biographer, Alejandra Carmona.

As a former minister of labor and social affairs, he pushed for a reduction in weekly working hours and reform of the private pension system. As president, the 51-year-old wants to tighten controls on illegal immigration and combat rising crime. In doing this, it raises topics that usually concern far-right parties.

This is the third presidential election campaign for right-wing Republican José Antonio Kast. The 59-year-old German-born lawyer’s father was a Wehrmacht soldier during the Nazi era and fled to Chile after the war ended. One of Kast’s brothers became a minister under Chile’s long-time dictator Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).

Kast himself also made no secret of his admiration for the dictator who persecuted, tortured and killed thousands of members of his opposition. With his expected takeover of power, he plans to expel all undocumented immigrants out of the country.

Johannes Kaiser was also from Germany, although according to his grandfather, he fled to Chile to escape the Nazis. The 49-year-old chairman and founder of the National Libertarian Party is considered more radically right-wing than Kast. On her YouTube channel, she questions women’s right to choose and mocks rape victims and Pinochet.

Kaiser announced that if he won the election, he would deport all immigrants without residence permits. Those with criminal records are expected to be sent to El Salvador’s notoriously violent prisons. He also wants to abolish the ministries of education, women and the environment and push for Chile’s withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement.

Conservative candidate Evelyn Matthei came third in a circle of right-wing candidates who have German ancestry. His father was a member of Pinochet’s military junta.

The former minister and former mayor of Providencia, a wealthy region of Santiago de Chile, who is now 72 years old, is considered much more moderate than Kast and Kaiser.

Nevertheless, he also defended the overthrow of democratically elected left-wing President Salvador Allende in 1973. Matthei recently finished fourth in opinion polls.