Chile 2025 elections: voters to pick new president in watershed moment

Chilean voters are heading to the polls on Sunday to vote for President Gabriel Boric’s successor. The sitting president himself is out of the race due to Chile’s electoral law, which means the country will be voting for a leader who will serve between 2026 and 2030.  There are eight candidates in the running. If none secures an absolute majority, the top two will go to a runoff on December 14. Chile will also renew 155 deputies, while some regions will vote to renew a total of 23 senate seats.  The most recent polls show Boric’s party successor, Jeanette Jara, heading into the contest with a lead over far-right candidates José Antonio Kast and Johannes Kaiser, who are fighting neck and neck for second place. Analysts, however, project that the lead would not be enough to avoid a runoff.  The election is set to mark a watershed moment in Chilean politics, as it will be the first time since the return of democracy in 1990 that two far-right candidates and Pinochet sympathizers have a chance of making it into the runoff. Not only that, but whoever makes it there is also favored to win.  According to Alberto Mayol, a political analyst and sociologist at the University of Santiago, Jara has no chance of getting 50% or more of the vote in the run-off. Even if she captured the vote of other left and center candidates in the race, she would only gather 43 to 45% of the vote at most. Estimates place votes for the right, split between Kast, Kaiser, and a third candidate named Evelyn Matthei, to hover slightly over 50% in the first round.  “Whichever right-wing candidate makes it to the runoff will be Chile’s next president,” he said.  The main candidates Jeannette Jara is the presidential candidate representing Unidad por Chile (Unity for Chile), the government-backed center-left coalition. A longtime member of the Communist Party, Jara served as Boric’s labor minister until April. Jara has promised to hike the minimum wage, boost employment, and adopt a more progressive tax system. However, she has moderated her discourse throughout the campaign, seemingly seeking to appeal to more conservative sectors. She has backtracked on proposals such as the nationalization of copper and lithium and the legalization of abortion. Instead, she has promised to prioritize the public sector. Far-right José Antonio Kast will run for president a third time. While he had more radical conservative proposals, such as an absolute abortion ban, when he ran against Boric, he also seems to have slightly moderated his discourse. Kast’s campaign promises include implementing his “Border Shield Plan” to combat organized crime and illegal immigration, especially along its northern border with Bolivia. This includes Trump-like measures such as setting up five-meter-high walls and fences and three-meter-deep ditches, as well as deploying the armed forces. “Those who enter illegally have to leave,” he has said. He also aims to lower taxes for large and medium companies, carry out a pension reform, and cut down on public expenditure, and he is a known supporter of dictator Augusto Pinochet. Johannes Kaiser managed to climb up from fourth to the potential third place and is directly disputing the right-wing vote with Kast, slightly trailing him in the polls. Kaiser is considered to be the Chilean Javier Milei, with a similar confrontational tone and far-right libertarian ideas, who also uses rock music in his rallies. Kaiser recently said he would favor a proposal to pardon military officers convicted for crimes against humanity committed during the Pinochet dictatorship, of whom he is also an admirer. Evelyn Matthei is the third right-wing candidate disputing the race, with some polls saying she has chances of making it into the run-off. She represents the more traditional Chilean right. Matthei attempted to negotiate a coalition with Kast and Kaiser, but both refused. A watershed political moment With two far-right candidates in competition to make it into the run-off, the political mood seems to have dramatically changed since President Gabriel Boric came into office four years ago.  The leftist former student leader came from behind to beat the far-right José Antonio Kast in the 2021 runoff. At 35, he was Chile’s youngest president ever. He took office with grand promises to rewrite the constitution after a 2019-2020 social uprising against inequality claimed 36 lives. But his flagship constitutional overhaul fell through when Chileans rejected it by referendum. His approval rating has tanked to around 21% in recent polls. Kast is once again in the running and, with fears over organized crime and insecurity growing, is polling slightly behind Boric’s party successor, Jeanette Jara. Mayol explained that the drastic polarization between far-left and far-right candidates in this election is a result of a process kickstarted by “social discomfort, serious institutional failure, and inability to solve important issues.” “As the historical and political system fails, new names appear. But if those names don’t work, people look to experiment,” Mayol said, referring to the disappointment caused by Boric’s government. “In that scenario, people only understand candidates in extreme ends, causing polarization.” Uncharted territory Compared to its neighbors, Chile has a strong economy and stable political system, but in recent years it has suffered turmoil that has shaken those foundations. Massive protests, a rising murder rate, surging organized crime, and economic stagnation are issues the next president will have to face, according to Mayol.  “Chile is a country that is used to institutional stability, which is currently at a critical point,” Mayol said.  The 2011 and 2019 mass protests were “like a heart attack and a stroke” for Chile’s institutional stability, he said. The two most recent plebiscites to change the Pinochet-era national constitution failed to solve the underlying issues. Meanwhile, rising interest rates and inflation only add to these issues. Boric’s farewell President Boric will be the last Chilean president unable to run for reelection since 1925, when consecutive reelection was banned. In 2022, the Chilean Constitutional Convention passed a bill allowing presidents to serve up to two consecutive terms — but that provision enters into force after this term. Boric could run for a second, non-consecutive term in the future. Since the return of democracy in 1990 after the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, Chile has maintained four-year presidential terms without reelections. According to a September poll by the Center of Public Studies, 66% of Chileans disapprove of how Boric is running his government.  “The government destroyed their historic advantage,” Mayol said. “They had a highly convenient cultural and political ecosystem, which was very unusual. The constitutional assembly was in their favor. They could write the constitution of the future. They had overwhelming majorities. All of that was gone in exactly 10 months.” This, according to Mayol, also ended “a 10-year cycle of left-wing values” in the social sphere that was replaced “by very rigid right-wing values.” The speed at which those changes happened, he added, is related to the political crisis Chile is undergoing.  “One space was emptied, and another was filled,” he said. “It is very shocking.”