Madrid, November 15 (Europe Press) –
Chileans will go to the polls this Sunday in the first round of a presidential election with up to eight candidates. In the second round, the potential opponents are Janet Jara from the ruling party and Jose Antonio Casto from the far right. It is also to renew the House of Representatives and half of the Senate.
This Sunday’s election will also be marked by an increase in the census count, after Congress made it mandatory to go to the polls in 2022. In previous elections, it was estimated that between 7 and 8 million voters participated, but as the 2024 local elections show, since the new benchmark was established, that figure has exceeded 13 million.
According to electoral law, no polls have been held in Chile for two weeks, but there have been televised debates and various campaign events, culminating with a large-scale event on Thursday. Mr. Hara and Mr. Kast used the opportunity to defend their model and occasionally launch attacks against their expected great rivals in this first round of voting. Johannes Kaiser and Evelyn Massey have two more options.
The electoral vote is filled with right-wing candidates — some traditionalists like Mr. Matei, others like the anti-vaxxer Kaiser, who openly praises the military dictatorship — and independents, including Mr. Jara, who was the former labor minister until April.
candidate
Jara, the first Communist Party member to aspire to rule the country, is leading the Chilean Unity candidates after a clear victory in the ruling party’s primaries, backed by the administration of Gabriel Boric’s government, which was key to reducing the working day to a 40-hour week.
In the natural second round of voting, scheduled for December 14th, Jara will be one of the three right-wing candidates mentioned above, but according to opinion polls and stronger than expected calls among the right to vote for the former minister’s rival, she will not be able to do anything.
Unlike Hara, the right-wing candidate has not gone through a primary election, so this first round is also seen as a primary election. The best position for the second round is Kast, an old friend in this type of fight. Current Republican candidates have attempted to reach La Moneda up to three times.
Mr. Kast has chosen to run a campaign that talks about the economy, the fight against illegal immigration, and the security situation until they become the focus, ignoring the so-called culture war talking points that have so undermined his past aspirations. A gauntlet taken on by Kaiser, who aims to become Chile’s Javier Millay.
Kaiser, who heads the National Liberal Party, which has split from Kast’s party, has even criticized Kaiser for presiding. He defines himself as a reactionary, an arms enthusiast, and represents the conservative far-right, which is economically and socially very neoliberal.
Mattei, a representative of classical conservatism and supported by centrists, is being punished both for his mistakes in justifying Augusto Pinochet’s coup, and for his promotion of Kast and Kaiser, which has forced him to adhere to policies such as tough immigration policies to avoid losing right-wing votes.
right horizon
Hara has a chance to win in the first round, but on the other hand, a less favorable scenario is possible in December. Another paradox is that although he was one of the most prominent members of Bolić’s cabinet, his membership diminished his status due to government attrition.
Instead, the right was able to exploit the Bolici government’s major challenges almost from the beginning: crime and illegal immigration despite being one of the safest countries in the region.
Approximately 337,000 foreigners live irregularly in Chile, most of them from Venezuela. The right is not shy when it comes to linking this type of immigration to crime, proposing an iron fist as a solution, a dynamic that plays hostage to historical and endemic inequalities, a dynamic that is repeated throughout the region.
Mr. Casto has proposed building a Nayib Bukele-style maximum-security prison in El Salvador, Mr. Massey is committed to increasing police presence on the streets, and Mr. Kaiser favors replicating President Donald Trump’s security policies, including mass deportations of foreigners and the transfer of convicted criminals from other countries to prisons outside Chile’s territory.
Jara has also spoken of millions of dollars in investments to strengthen security and borders, but like the current government, he is committed to integration programs for foreigners and advocates targeting organized crime funds for money laundering purposes.
5 million people’s “duty”
This is the first presidential election, and between 5 million and 6 million Chileans who do not normally vote will have to do so, subject to fines ranging from 30 to 100 euros, with exceptions such as those found to be ill, disabled, or abroad.
There have been four rounds of voting since the reforms were approved by Congress in 2022, with 13 million of the 15.6 million people automatically registered in the census voting at the ballot box.
Although the profile of this new electorate is still unclear and unpredictable due to political apathy, some analyzes suggest that he was key to the Kast party’s clear victory in the elections to the Constitutional Council, which overturned Bolić’s constitutional proposals and was responsible for discussing the new proposals for Magna Carta.
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