A supporter of Chile’s presidential candidate Jose Antonio Kast, of the Republican Social gathering, waves Chilean flags throughout his closing marketing campaign rally in Santiago on Nov. 11, 2025.
MARVIN RECINOS/AFP through Getty Photos
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MARVIN RECINOS/AFP through Getty Photos
SANTIAGO, Chile — This Sunday, Chileans head to the polls in a common election to vote for a brand new president, Senate and Congress.
However 4 years after voting for leftwing former scholar chief Gabriel Boric to develop into the nation’s youngest ever president with a mandate to develop the welfare state in Chile, this race seems radically completely different.
Safety, immigration and unemployment are high of the agenda for voters.
Three right-wing candidates are vying to hitch Communist Social gathering politician Jeannette Jara, 51, the present frontrunner in keeping with polls, in a possible runoff election to be held subsequent month.
Jara, who served as labour minister in Boric’s authorities and is a former scholar and union chief, is promising to progressively introduce a minimal earnings of $780 monthly, in addition to money transfers to employees, and subsidies for small companies.
She closed her marketing campaign on Wednesday night in an open sq. in a southern district of the capital, Santiago, the place grocery store cashier Rosa Rivera watched Jara ship her closing remarks alongside her husband from the again of the group.
“She would not promise issues she will be able to’t obtain, which I feel is a really accountable strategy,” she stated. “I consider she could be a very good president for Chile.”
Within the night sunshine throughout city, 20-year-old medical scholar Alanis Ramírez defined why her vote was going to far-right Catholic father of 9 José Antonio Kast, earlier than ducking right into a cavernous live performance venue to listen to her candidate communicate one ultimate time earlier than Sunday’s vote.
“He is aware of what our nation wants, and he has the expertise to ship it,” she stated. “Chile wants an iron fist, as a result of criminals have it too simple – I can not even exit on the street in my neighbourhood anymore as a result of it is too harmful.”
Contained in the constructing, music blared and a handful of younger individuals jumped up and down excitedly on the request of a DJ enjoying reggaeton, whereas lights strafed the group because it constructed up.
When Kast lastly spoke to the packed enviornment, his plans to sort out unlawful migration, delivered to a backdrop of pink, white and blue, the colors of Chile’s flag, supplied a spectacle with a distinctly Trumpian ring.
Kast’s hardline safety and immigration insurance policies have seen him reward El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele, who has cracked down on gang violence within the Central American nation, and paint his potential administration as an “emergency” authorities. He’s proposing to criminalize irregular migration, dig border ditches and construct partitions, and assemble new high-security jails.
President Boric has been lambasted by Chile’s proper wing, who blame his administration for disregarding safety, which is perceived to have skyrocketed beneath his management.
In October, 63% of Chilean respondents to an Ipsos survey stated that their most urgent concern was crime – extra even than respondents in Mexico or Colombia.
However whereas homicides have dropped and Chile stays one of many most secure international locations in Latin America, violent crime charges have spiked for some particular offences comparable to kidnappings.
Outflanking Kast even additional to the precise is 49-year-old YouTuber-turned libertarian congressman, Johannes Kaiser, who’s operating for the presidency for the primary time.
At his personal marketing campaign closing occasion on Wednesday, a baying crowd was whipped up by Kaiser’s vitriolic anti-communism and assaults on progressive values. Within the crowd, some memento sellers offered pin badges with anti-communist messages and even mock ID playing cards with dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s picture.
He has stated that if elected, he would shut the border with Bolivia to halt unlawful migration, scale back the variety of ministries from 25 to 9, deport undocumented migrants and their kids, and withdraw Chile from worldwide local weather treaties and the regional human rights court docket.
In 2021 as a congressman-elect, Kaiser questioned whether or not girls ought to have the precise to vote, and has constantly attacked what he refers to as “gender ideology.”
A fourth rightwing candidate, Evelyn Matthei, a long-term fixture on the standard proper wing of Chilean politics, has fallen precipitously within the polls as a extra average different for the presidency.
Matthei, like Kast and Kaiser, is of German descent. She even thanked Kaiser in German on the ultimate televised debate per week earlier than the election.
Voting is necessary on this election, which means turnout will probably be considerably larger than in 2021.
If no presidential candidate secures an absolute majority on Sunday, as is anticipated, the 2 main contenders will head to a runoff on Dec. 14th.
The brand new president will take workplace on March 11.
