Chile’s army officers patrol a polling station at the Estadio Nacional ahead of the second round of the presidential election in Santiago on December 13, 2025.
| Photo Credit: AFP
Chileans will elect a new President on Sunday (December 14, 2025), facing a stark choice between the most right-wing candidate in 35 years of democracy and the head of a broad leftist coalition.
Almost 16 million citizens can cast their ballot in the runoff vote between father-of-nine Jose Antonio Kast and his rival Jeannette Jara, a longstanding member of the Communist Party.
Polls show Mr. Kast as the strong front-runner, with his tough-on-crime and anti-migrant message seemingly registering with Chileans.
“The country is falling apart” 59-year-old Mr. Kast has claimed on the campaign trail, often speaking from behind bulletproof glass to underscore his point.
Once one of the safest and most prosperous countries in the Americas, Chile has been hit hard in recent years by the COVID-19 pandemic, violent social protests, and an influx of foreign organised crime.
Mr. Kast is far to the right of most Chileans on many issues.
But voters fed up with high crime and slow growth during four years of leftist rule say they will vote for change, despite misgivings.
Mr. Kast has vowed to deport hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants, opposed abortion without exceptions, and voiced support for the bloody dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
Polls show more than 60% of Chileans think security is the top issue facing the country — far eclipsing the economy, healthcare, or education.
And while statistics show that violent crime — fueled by Venezuelan, Peruvian, Colombian and Ecuadoran gangs — has risen in the last ten years, fears about crime have risen even faster.
‘Pinochet out of uniform’
But Mr. Kast’s hardline positions have also brought fears that he will edge Chile back toward the bad old days of a dictatorship that killed or disappeared more than 3,000 of its own citizens and tortured many thousands more.
“I’m fearful because I think we are going to have a lot of repression,” said 71-year-old retiree Cecilia Mora, who said that “under no circumstances” would she vote for Mr. Kast.
“The candidate of the right reminds me a lot of the dictatorship. I lived through the dictatorship. I was young, but I lived through it, suffered through it.”
“I see him as a Pinochet out of uniform,” she said, comparing Kast to a man who for decades was the medal-festooned caricature of a Latin American military dictator.
Pinochet left power in 1990, after Chileans rejected a bid to extend his 17-year rule via referendum.
As a university student, Kast campaigned for the pro-Pinochet vote.
His family background has also raised questions. Media investigations have revealed that Kast’s German-born father was a member of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party and a soldier during World War II.
Mr. Kast insists his father was a forced conscript and did not support the Nazis.
Incumbent blues
Ms. Jara led the first round of voting in November, but right-wing candidates garnered 70% of the vote.
In a head-to-head race between Kast and Ms. Jara, polls show him winning by more than ten percentage points.
Ms. Jara’s time as Labor Minister in the government of President Gabriel Boric has proven to be an Achilles’ Heel.
The 39-year-old President’s four-year term has been crippled by repeated failed attempts to reform the Pinochet-era constitution.
Being tied to the ruling party is almost a kiss of death in Chilean politics.
Since 2010, Chileans have alternated between left and right governments at every presidential election. At this election, voting is compulsory for the first time in more than a decade.
Polls will open at 8:00 a.m. Santiago time (1100 GMT).
Published – December 14, 2025 08:25 am IST
