The far-right candidate for president of Chile, José Kast, won the elections this Sunday, December 14, with the left-wing candidate, Jeannette Jara, recognizing defeat, with a difference of 16.6 percentage points between them, according to official preliminary results.
“Democracy spoke loud and clear”, wrote Jeanette Jara on the social network X, stating that she had communicated “with the elected President”, the ultraconservative Kast, “to wish him success, for the good of Chile”.
According to the official preliminary results released, based on the count of around 76% of the ballot papers, Kast, a 59-year-old lawyer, has a clear advantage, with 58.30% of the votes, against 41.70% for Jara, a moderate communist who represents a broad left-wing coalition.
Kast was the favorite in the polls for the second round of the presidential elections and will thus become the next President of Chile, being the first time since the end of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, 35 years ago, that a far-right candidate has found himself in such a situation in the Latin American country.
The polling stations began to close at 6pm local time (9pm Lisbon), paving the way for the counting of votes, at the end of a day marked by long queues for this mandatory election. Almost 16 million voters were asked to choose between the two candidates.
In his third attempt to become Chile’s head of state, former deputy Kast, a practicing Catholic and father of nine children, campaigned on the promise of fighting crime and deporting almost 340,000 undocumented immigrants, the majority of whom are Venezuelans.
His opponent, Jeannette Jara, 51, former labor minister in the government of outgoing President Gabriel Boric, promised to increase the minimum wage and protect pensions.
In the first round, in mid-November, the two candidates received a quarter of the votes each, with a slight advantage to the left. But, together, the right-wing candidates won 70%.