SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Chileans voted for a new president and parliament on Sunday, presumably in favor of the far right as candidates play on popular concerns about organized crime and immigration.
It is the first of two rounds of presidential elections in the South American country, as polls show neither candidate has cleared the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a runoff scheduled for Dec. 14.
On the surface, Sunday's elections offer Chileans a dramatic choice between two extremes: Jeannette Jara, 51, a card-carrying communist and former labor minister in a left-wing government, and, among other right-wing contenders, José Antonio Caste, 59, an ultra-conservative lawyer and former lawmaker who opposes abortion and vows to shrink the state.
But as voters worry about rising gang crime, which they blame on a recent surge in illegal immigration from crisis-stricken Venezuela, the campaign has pushed bitterly opposed leaders toward a common theme of public insecurity.
Polling stations opened at 8am and closed at 6pm, with results expected throughout the night.
Two extremes haunt the center
In a display of political gymnastics, the Communist candidate promotes fiscal restraint while the Catholic father of nine avoids talking about traditional family values.
Both say it is a top priority to combat foreign gangs such as Venezuela's Tren de Aragua, whose recent offensive in Chile has fueled kidnappings, extortion and sex trafficking and shattered the country's image as a safer and more stable nation than the rest of the region.
“They talk about things that concern all voters, they fight for the center,” said Rodolfo Disi, a political scientist at Chile's Adolfo Ibáñez University.
Behind Jara and Kast on the list of eight candidates are Johannes Kaiser, 49, a radical libertarian congressman and YouTuber, and Evelyn Mattei, 72, a veteran center-right politician.
With the right-wing vote split and President Gabriel Boric's center-left coalition united around his former minister, most experts expect the charismatic Jara to win Sunday's first round. According to the constitution, Borich does not have the right to run for a subsequent term.
But Hara's initial victory could still mean she loses in a runoff against a right-wing opponent who promises tighter security measures.
“If (Hara) starts getting tougher on crime, the right can always get tougher,” Deasy said. “It's a losing game.”
Compulsory voting is a wildcard
For the first time in Chilean history, all eligible citizens will be required to vote for the president.
The country recently reintroduced compulsory voting after ending the practice in 2012. Voter registration is now automatic, so millions of people who never bothered to register even when voting was compulsory will cast their first ballots in the presidential race. Those who fail to do so face a fine of up to $100.
Analysts are divided on the potential impact.
“This is a huge question,” said Robert Funk, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Chile. “We have 4 million new voters. Who are they? Are they young people who like Jara? Are they people from marginal areas who are attracted to Caste's tough-on-crime stance?”
On Sunday, Chile will also renew the entire lower house of Congress and part of the Senate.
The country has 15.7 million eligible voters, of whom more than 800,000 are immigrants with a residence period of five years or more and are exempt from compulsory voting. Polls show foreigners overwhelmingly support the right, especially Venezuelans who have fled their repressive socialist government.
But this time, some immigrants are hesitant to support a candidate who has vowed to round up and deport his fellow Americans.
“I would vote for Casta, but it hurts me to hear such speeches,” said Juan Pablo Sanchez, a delivery app employee who migrated from Venezuela six years ago. “I don't know what to do.”
High unemployment, sluggish growth
On the economy, Hara talks about increasing infrastructure investment and reining in government debt – hardly the talking points of a communist firebrand.
To address Chile's cost-of-living crisis, which in 2019 contributed to the country's most significant social upheaval since the fall of General Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship in 1990, it is proposing a “living” monthly income of $800 through subsidies and an increase in the minimum wage.
Taking a page from President Javier Miley's playbook in neighboring Argentina, Cast promises to slash government payrolls and slash corporate taxes in an attempt to revive a stagnant economy that has slowed the pace of job creation as immigrants flood the labor market.
He says he will cut spending by more than $6 billion over 18 months – something his conservative rival Mattei, an economist by training, has called “completely and utterly impossible.” It proposes a more gradual fiscal adjustment over four years.
Wooing more radical voters disillusioned with Caste's moderation, Kaiser promises to cut spending by $15 billion and fire 200,000 government workers.
The fight for the harshest repression
All leaders take a tough approach to illegal immigration. Chile's foreign population has doubled since 2017, with 1.6 million immigrants registered in the country of 18 million last year. An estimated 330,000 people are undocumented.
Kast wants to build a massive wall along Chile's northern border and deport tens of thousands of people who entered there illegally. Kaiser wants to keep undocumented migrants in detention camps and ban their children from going to school. Mattei wants to deploy drones and additional military forces to the border.
Jara has also tried to sharpen her crime-fighting credentials, promising to build new prisons and deport foreigners convicted of drug trafficking.
This law-and-order election stands in stark contrast to Chile's last presidential election in 2021, when voters angered by growing inequality elected the youngest president in history, a tattooed former student protest leader who promised sweeping social change.
But economic constraints and legislative opposition ultimately limited Borich's ambitions.
“I want a better country – not just for myself, but for my children,” said Alatina Velasquez, 20, a student at the recent Kaiser rally who said she has lost two of her friends to gang violence in the past two years.
“Right now, all it means is being able to walk out of class at night without having to look over your shoulder.”
