SANTIAGO, Chile — Chileans head to the polls Sunday in a stark runoff between far-right José Antonio Kast, the favorite in polls, and left-wing Jeannette Jara, a Communist Party member and former labor minister. With compulsory voting in place, many voters say they will choose a candidate who does not fully represent them.
At a closing rally in Temuco, Kast addressed several thousand supporters, many young men waving Chilean flags. Cries of “Communists out!” rose from the crowd, and the loudest cheers came for promises to deport migrants and mass-imprison criminals. “I’m voting for Kast because of his security agenda,” said 18-year-old Benjamín Sandoval. “The country is very unsafe, you can’t even go out after 10pm these days. They could attack you, and it’s the migrants who are doing it most.”
A pronounced fear of crime, amplified by intense media coverage, has become a defining issue in the campaign. In a 2024 Gallup global safety report Chile ranked high for fear of walking alone at night despite being among Latin America’s safer countries. Violent crime rose over the last four years, with homicides spiking in 2023 before beginning to fall again. Large numbers of arrivals fleeing Venezuela have also pushed illegal migration up the public agenda.
Kast, 59, a Catholic father of nine, has built his campaign around security and migration. He is the son of Michael Kast, a German soldier and Nazi Party member who emigrated to Chile in 1950; José Antonio’s brother Miguel served as a minister during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. Kast is a vocal defender of the dictatorship that oversaw torture, murders and disappearances, and he began political activism as a student campaigning for Pinochet in the 1988 plebiscite.
In this election Kast has downplayed some socially controversial positions that hurt earlier bids, offering little on issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion; when pressed in a debate he said, “I’m the same man I’ve always been.” His campaign has focused on public security and migration while promising business-friendly economic moves: cutting corporation tax and trimming the public budget by about $6 billion in his first 18 months. He has refused to detail how those savings would be achieved beyond mass dismissal of public employees hired during left-wing President Gabriel Boric’s term.
Jara, 51, presents a contrasting vision. She served as an undersecretary in Michelle Bachelet’s government and as labor minister under Boric, where she championed pension reform, helped raise the minimum wage and shortened the working week. A student leader who joined the Communist Party’s youth wing at 14, Jara has been on its central committee since 2015.
Her campaign emphasizes affordability: a proposed universal core income of about $800 a month funded by gradual minimum-wage increases, lower electricity bills, and state-backed savings to help 25- to 40-year-olds buy homes. At her final rally in Santiago, supporters gathered as music played and lights lit the trees. “I would never vote for a man who speaks so badly about women, he thinks we are just here to procreate,” said Roxana Muñoz, a 58-year-old cashier. “I totally identify with Jara.”
If polls hold, Kast would become Chile’s most right-wing leader since the end of Pinochet’s dictatorship in 1990. A Kast victory would also fit broader regional shifts: recent elections in Bolivia, Argentina and Ecuador have favored parties to the right or center-right, reflecting changing political tides across Latin America.