Kast vs Jara: Chile votes in polarising presidential run-off

Chileans gear up to cast their ballots in run-off election, with far-right candidate Jose Kast gaining ground in polls.

Chileans are set to vote in a closely watched presidential election run-off on Sunday, with pre-poll surveys showing far-right opposition candidate Jose Antonio Kast leading over his centre-left rival, Jeannette Jara.

Kast, who considers United States President Donald Trump a role model, has made crime and undocumented migration a centrepiece of his campaign. He has promised to launch mass deportations and initiate a sweeping law-and-order agenda as part of his rhetoric to “Make Chile Great Again”.

Jara, the candidate for the governing left-wing coalition, was narrowly ahead of Kast in the first round last month. The 51-year-old had garnered nearly 27 percent of the vote against Kast, in second place with 24 percent of the votes.

Kast, the 59-year-old Republican Party leader, has been able to mobilise the votes of the defeated opponents from the right-wing camp, making him the favourite going into Sunday’s run-off. Right-wing candidates had collectively secured about 70 percent of the votes in the November 16 polls.

Analysts fear Kast’s victory could change the country’s political course for the first time since a return to democracy 35 years ago. Chileans have long prided themselves on keeping far-right politics at bay after the end of the military government of Augusto Pinochet in the 1970s and 80s. In his youth, Kast was a keen supporter of Pinochet.

Rollback of women’s rights

Yet frustration runs deep among voters, many of whom feel unrepresented by either finalist.

Many voters say they cannot bring themselves to vote for Jara, who is a member of Chile’s orthodox Communist Party.

Jara, who served as labour minister under incumbent President Gabriel Boric, helped pass flagship welfare reforms but has struggled to shift the debate. She now pledges tougher border controls and stronger policing. Still, analysts say her communist background limits her appeal.

Leonidas Monte of the Centre for Political Studies said Chileans judge candidates largely on rejection rates, adding that “somebody from the Communist Party will be with a 50 percent or above rejection”.

Jara says she will resign from the Communist Party if she wins, but that has not convinced some voters.

Questions also surround whether Kast could deliver on his most ambitious pledges.

He has promised to cut $6bn in public spending within 18 months without touching social benefits, deport more than 300,000 undocumented migrants and expand the army’s role in fighting organised crime – proposals that revive painful memories of Pinochet’s military rule.

Kast’s party lacks a congressional majority, forcing him to negotiate with more moderate right-wing allies. Any compromise could dilute his agenda, but failing to act swiftly may alienate supporters drawn to his uncompromising rhetoric.

Chilean Congresswoman Lorena Fries warned that Kast’s social conservatism could roll back women’s rights. He is running on “the traditional logic of traditional family dynamics. Obviously, women will be at a disadvantage compared to men in the public and especially the political arena,” she told Al Jazeera.

Crime and migration have eclipsed all other issues. Under President Boric, Chile recorded a homicide peak in 2022 as regional criminal groups exploited undocumented immigration routes, although killings have since fallen.

Kast, mindful of past defeats, has avoided incendiary topics such as his father’s Nazi past and his own nostalgia for Pinochet. Many supporters say concerns about human rights now rank below personal safety.

Reporting from Santiago, Al Jazeera’s Latin America editor Lucia Newman said, “Many people are afraid of what will happen here if Kast wins the presidency, but many others tell us that they cannot bring themselves to vote for a communist, and that’s why we’re hearing that more Chileans than ever before are thinking of casting a blank ballot when they go in here to vote.”

“A vote that, if polls are right, will veer Chile in the same direction as many of its conservative neighbours,” Newman said.