MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Jara and Kast advance to Chile's presidential runoff

Security issues boosted Kast's performance, while Jara fell below expectations

Chile will head to a presidential runoff election on Dec. after leftist candidate Jeannette Jara edged conservative José Antonio Kast to secure the top two spots in Sunday's general election. The winner will succeed Gabriel Boric Font.

The ruling party and Christian Democrat candidate, Jeannette Jara, a former Labor Minister, won the first round but underperformed expectations with only 26.6% of the vote, against Kast's 24.2%.

Jara’s lead of less than three percentage points sets up a highly polarized final contest, which President Boric acknowledged in a televised speech: “I am confident that dialogue, respect, and love for Chile will prevail over any differences.”

Coming in third was Franco Parisi (People's Party) with 19.0%, which was a surprise, as almost all surveys had predicted that place would go to the Libertarian Johannes Kaiser, who got only 13.9%, narrowly surpassing Evelyn Matthei's 13.0%. Harold Mayne-Nicholls (1.2%), Marco Enríquez-Ominami (1.1%), and Eduardo Artés (0.6%) rounded out the field.

Analysts noted that the campaign was heavily dominated by fears of insecurity and rising crime, which boosted Kast's performance, as well as the populist bid.

While the crime and homicide rates (homicides have increased by 140% over the last decade) remain low by global standards, the surge of new crimes, such as contract killings and the arrival of organized crime groups like the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, has focused the national debate.

Jara has promised “no qualms about security” while also focusing on economic security, proposing measures like lifting banking secrecy to combat organized crime financing.

Kast, running for the third time, has centered his campaign on mass deportations of the 337,000 irregular migrants and implementing a “border shield” featuring metal fences and ditches.

It was Chile's first election under compulsory voting, which is believed to have increased turnout.