The first round of Chile’s presidential election did not produce a clear winner, so the top two candidates, leftist Jeannette Jara and far-right Jose Antonio Kast, will compete in a second round of voting in December to decide the final winner.
Partial results with 52.39 pecent of votes counted show Jara is in the lead with 26.58 percent, Antonio Kast is in second with 24.32 percent, and the next closest contender, Johannes Kaiser, has accepted defeat and will not continue in the race.
The campaign has been overshadowed by rising crime, including murders, kidnappings, and extortion, which has been linked to foreign criminal groups. Migrants now make up 8.8 percent of Chile’s population, doubling since 2017. Jara is currently ahead in the first round, but winning the December 14 runoff will be challenging. The reason is that the total support for all right-wing candidates is much larger than that for left-wing candidates, so Kast could consolidate right-wing votes and potentially overtake her in the second round.
Jara plans to expand the police, lift banking secrecy to fight organised crime, and tackle cost-of-living issues. Kast, compared to Donald Trump, wants to build walls and trenches along the border with Bolivia to curb migrant inflows. The election is seen as a test of the South American left’s recent decline in countries like Argentina and Bolivia.
