Chile’s presidential race heads to a runoff between a communist and a pro-Τrump conservative

Chile is headed to a tense presidential runoff after a closely fought first-round vote Sunday set up a showdown between a member of the Communist Party and an ultraconservative veteran politician, sharply polarizing the country between the political left and right.

Jeannette Jara, 51, the communist former labor minister and candidate of Chile’s center-left governing coalition, won 26.8% of valid ballots with almost 100% of the vote counted, failing to pass the 50% threshold to secure victory in the first round.

José Antonio Kast, 59, a hard-right former lawmaker and devout Catholic opposed to same-sex marriage and abortion, captured almost 24% of the vote, underscoring the appeal of his law-and-order platform as a surge in organized crime rattles one of Latin America’s safest nations and foments anti-migrant sentiment among Chileans.

An admirer of U.S. President Donald Trump and Brazil’s former President Jair Bolsonaro, Kast has vowed to deport tens of thousands of undocumented migrants and construct hundreds of kilometers of ditches and walls along Chile’s northern border with Bolivia to prevent people from crossing, particularly from crisis-stricken Venezuela.

Although voters gave Jara a slight edge on Sunday, Kast will likely benefit in the second round from a large share of votes that went to three eliminated right-wing challengers who campaigned aggressively on the need to tackle illegal immigration.

The third- and fourth-placed candidates were Franco Parisi, a right-leaning populist economist with a large social media following, with 20% of votes, and Johannes Kaiser, a radical libertarian and former YouTube provocateur elected as lawmaker in 2021, with 13.9%.

Like her opponents, Jara has called security a top priority, promising plans to deport foreigners convicted of drug trafficking, boost controls along Chile’s borders and tackle money laundering.