Chile tacks sharply to right as Kast wins 2025 presidential election

Chile’s far-right candidate José Antonio Kast has beaten his left-wing rival Jeannette Jara to win the country’s presidential run-off with 58% of the vote to Jara’s 42%, according to data from the Servel electoral authority.  It’s third time lucky for Kast, who had run for president twice before. This year, he campaigned on pledges to toughen border controls, fight organized crime, cut taxes for businesses, and reduce public spending. Kast has also been accused of defending Chile’s deceased former dictator, Augusto Pinochet, saying that if he were alive today Pinochet would vote for him, and declining to call his rule a dictatorship. Jara came top in the first round of the elections, with 27% against Kast’s 24%, but failed to clear the threshold for an outright victory. With several right-wing candidates in the race, Kast was widely expected to prevail in the run-off by picking up the other right-wing votes. Jara was outgoing left-wing President Gabriel Boric’s labor minister until April. Boric himself was not allowed to run for re-election. While a 2022 bill allows presidents to serve two consecutive terms, it takes effect after he leaves office. A former student leader, Boric narrowly beat Kast in the 2021 presidential run-off, when he was just 35. He rode to victory on a reformist wave that followed the social uprising of 2019 and 2020, during which protests against entrenched inequality — and the police crackdowns that followed — claimed over 30 lives and injured thousands. However, his approval rating quickly fell. His flagship initiative to rewrite Chile’s constitution, which dates back to the Pinochet dictatorship, fell apart after two new draft constitutions were rejected in referendums.