Chile: Communist Jeannette Jara and Conservative José Antonio Kast Head to Presidential Runoff

Chilean communist former minister Jeannette Jara and conservative former lawmaker José Antonio Kast will head to a presidential runoff election on December 14 following Sunday’s general election results.

Chile held a new general election on Sunday, which saw eight different candidates competing to succeed outgoing far-left President Gabriel Boric once his term ends in March 2026. The election also saw Chilean voters renew all 115 members of the Chamber of Deputies and 23 of the 50 seats at the Senate.

Preliminary results from Chile’s Servel Electoral Service at press time indicate that Jara, running under the Unity for Chile leftist coalition, obtained  26.85 percent of the votes, with Kast and the conservative Change for Chile coalition coming in second place after obtaining 23.92 percent.

Franco Parisi of the centrist populist People’s Party defied local polls, and came in third place with 19.71 of the votes, while Libertarian lawmaker Johannes Kaiser came in fourth place with 13.94 percent.

As neither candidate obtained the absolute majority required to win in the first round, Jara and Kast will head off to a runoff election on December 14. Sunday’s election, the first in the country featuring compulsory voter participation under penalty of a fine, saw a turnout of roughly 85 percent.

Jara, who served as Labor Minister under Boric, addressed her followers once the first preliminary results were published. The former minister praised the “legacy of progressivism” for social rights and criticized her soon-to-be runoff rival Kast, asserting that she “regrets that in the 16 years that Kast served as a congressman, no one can recall a single law or agreement that he passed for the good of the country.”

“Don’t let fear freeze your hearts; it’s not worth it. Fear must be fought by providing security to families. Not by inventing imaginary solutions in minds that suddenly come up with one radical idea after another, in minds that believe they have to hide behind bulletproof glass, in minds that want to make you believe that someone is going to attack you,” Jara said, referencing Kast’s use of bulletproof glass and other security measures throughout the campaign.

Kast, a conservative lawyer who served as lawmaker from 2002 to 2018 told his followers that “third time’s the charm,”  as 2025 marks the third time he has run for president. He unsuccessfully ran in 2017, when he only obtained 7.9 percent of the votes. He ran a second time in 2021 and, while he won in the first round, he ultimately lost to outgoing President Boric in the runoff.

The conservative lawyer stressed that the December 14 runoff is not just any election, but instead will be “the most important of our generation,” one that will mark a “real plebiscite” between two models of society.

“This is a first step, but what lies ahead is the most relevant, the most important thing. What became clear today is that the opposition defeated a failed government, a government that did not govern in the style of the country,” Kast reportedly said on Sunday.

“But the only real victory, the only victory that will make us celebrate, is when we defeat organized crime and drug trafficking. The real victory will be when we close our borders to illegal immigration,” he continued. “The real victory will be when Chileans have decent jobs and Chile returns to growth, unlike what has happened until now.”

“Tonight Chile woke up, but it woke up for real after six years of violence and ideology (…) Maybe I’m not the most likable person, I’m not the best dancer, but I can tell you that I’m here because the people of Chile have put me here,” he stressed in another part of his speech.

Kast stressed that he is confident that his coalition will be able to “recover and rebuild” Chile by working with all the different factions of the Chilean right. Kast highlighted that Chile needs to avoid the “continuation of a very bad government, perhaps the worst government we can remember in Chile’s democratic history” in the upcoming runoff.

Libertarian lawmaker Johannes Kaiser, who polls suggested would “tie” with Kast in the first round of the election, reiterated his past promise of backing any candidate in the runoff except Jara and told his followers that he and his National Libertarian Party will support Kast in December. Similarly, conservative former mayor Evelyn Matthei, one of the eight candidates that ran in Sunday’s election, pledged her support to Kast for the upcoming runoff. Matthei called for all of her followers to vote for Kast “that this [current leftist] government does not remain in power.”

Franco Parisi, who came in a surprising third-place in Sunday’s election, did not immediately pledge his support to either Jara or Kast and called for both candidates to “earn” his votes, stressing, “I need gestures from them, but no favors.” Infobae noted that Parisi, much like in his past 2013 and 2021 presidential runs, received most of his voter support from northern Chile’s mining states.

“I don’t sign blank checks to anyone; that’s disrespectful. I have bad news for candidate Kast and candidate Jara: earn the votes, win over the people. I need to see some action from them. The PDG doesn’t need any favors,” Parisi said.

Parisi’s populist People’s Party will reportedly hold an inner consultation on the following days to define who the party will support in the upcoming runoff. The party pledged its support to Kast in the 2021 elections following a similar internal consultation process.

President Boric, addressing his country, celebrated voters and Chile’s Electoral Service for a successful election, congratulating both Jara and Kast for heading off to a runoff.

“On Sunday, December 14, Chile will elect the next president of our country, who will govern our nation for the next four years. This fundamental decision rests on the conscience and free and informed vote of each and every one of you,” Boric wrote on social media. “Our homeland, our history, and our shared destiny are forged day by day, in democracy, today, tomorrow, and always.

Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.