By Nitya Chakraborty
With three days left for the Presidential elections in Chile on Sunday, November 16, opinion polls indicate the joint candidate of the ruling Left combination, communist parliamentarian Jeannette Jara leading with around 30 per cent of the votes while the main Right challenger Antonio Cast at around 20 per cent followed by other right wingers getting from 16 per cent to eight per cent. It is now clear that the first round elections on Sunday will be followed by the run off on December 14 this year. As per Chilean constitution, the winning candidate in the first round must have 50 per cent of the votes.
So, the campaigners of the major political parties are reconciled to a run off though the three right wing candidates are making maximum efforts to improve their position so that they can get the second place in the first round to get included in the runoff ballot as final candidates. As per the Electoral Commission rules, only the first two candidates from the first round, will be eligible to contest in the runoff which will then decide the winner by simple majority.
For the Presidential elections, eight candidates names are in the ballot but the focus is on the Left candidate Jeannette Jara, Republican Party candidate Antony Cast, Johannes Kaiser of the National Libertarian Party and Franco Parsi, an independent Right winger. The concern for the Left is that most of the Left vote base is covered by the ruling Left Front and there is little scope of much support at the run off stage from the fringe Left. But if Antony Cast becomes second, he can organize the votes of the other right wing parties in his favour. That will give him much more than Jara, his formidable rival.
The eventual winner takes office on March 11, 2026. This is Chile’s first presidential election since 2012 where voting is compulsory. Gabriel Boric, won the presidency in the last Presidential elections as the leader of the coalition of Marxist and other Left groups with the Chilean Communist Party being a leading partner. At the primary election in June this year, the veteran Communist leader and the former Labour Minister of the Boric government won with 60 per cent of the votes defeating other contenders. So she was chosen by the Left coalition to be the Presidential candidate in the 2025 elections.
November 16 polls will also elect all 155 members of the Chamber of Deputies and 23 out of 50 members of Senate. So for the ruling Left coalition, it is equally important for them to raise the number of deputies and senators through this election. The absence of majority in the chamber of deputies created big problems of the Boric government in its present term. That is why, the Left campaigners have been equally giving emphasis on the win of their candidates in the deputies and the senate levels.
About 15.7 million Chileans are eligible to vote in this election. That includes not only citizens but anyone who has resided in the country for more than five years, per the Constitution. In Chile’s regional elections in 2024, nearly 800,000 non-citizen residents voted. Venezuelan immigrants, in particular, have swelled as a voting bloc with close to a quarter of a million eligible to cast ballots. Suffrage is also extended to the nearly 150,000 Chileans residing abroad.
The Communist candidate Jara has a personal reputation of high honesty. She did a lot for the labour in Chile as the labour minister, but she is facing problems because of the present economic distress which is being exploited by the Right parties in their campaign against her. Voters rank economic issues—like unemployment, inflation, and high prices—as major issues. Chile has among the highest unemployment rates in Latin America, around 9 percent. The inflation rate of 6.1 percent puts it in line with its regional peers, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. Among those countries, Chile has the highest consumer confidence.
Chile’s GDP is expected to grow 2.5 percent this year. However, a slowdown in global growth, especially in relation to downshifts in global trade, has depressed growth in Chile. When the mining sector is removed from economic projections, Chile’s economic growth this year is virtually zero. In the first two years of Boric regime, the reforms took place along with firm measures to deal with rising prices. But in the last one year, the economic situation has deteriorated. The popularity of President Boric has dipped to 40 per cent. This has come as a big issue in Jara’s campaign. She is trying her best to deal with the issue through her own personal record as a minister.
Chilean Communist Party, which is the leading constituent of the Gabriel Boric led coalition carries a glorious tradition of the fight against the fascist regime of Pinochet. After fighting the fascist regime for decades, the Chilean communists took a lead role in forming a coalition of the left and socialist forces to get into power. This year in April, a young Communist Party Deputy Karol Cariola was elected as the new President of the 155 member chamber of deputies after winning by 76 to 75 votes in a gruelling fight between the combined Left and the Right. The right wing parties have a majority in the chamber with 78 members as against 76 of the left wing coalition headed by the Marxist president Gabriel Boric, but in the final voting, the Left nominee won by just one vote.
Karol Cariola—37, a midwife and former president of the Federation of Students of the University of Concepción (a major industrial town and port in central Chile) and former general secretary of the Young Communist League, is highly popular in the political arena of Chile. Her election was hailed by the people of all party shades, especially by the women and the youth.
The Left coalition campaigners as also specifically the Communist Party volunteers are working hard to cross the hurdle of first round first on November 16. If Jara wins in the first round as expected, the Left has plans to campaign extensively in the period of one month before the run off to persuade a good section of the working class people who are supporters of the Right parties. In the highly polarized situation, only by effectively creating cracks in the Right support base, the Left coalition candidate can hope to win in the runoff. But right now, all focus is on November 16 first round polls in Chile. (IPA Service)
