By Nitya Chakraborty
The Latin American Left got a major shock on Sunday December 14 as the far right candidate Jose Antonio Kast won the run off Presidential elections by defeating the ruling Left coalition candidate Jeannette Jara by a margin of 16 per cent of the polled votes. Kast got 58 per cent while the much respected Communist leader Jara got 42 per cent. Jara was the front runner in the first round of elections, but for the final round, there was total Right consolidation leading to her defeat.
With the Right victory in Chile by the end of 2025, it was a clean sweep for the Right wing parties in Latin America in the current year beginning with Ecuador and followed by El Salvador, Argentina and Bolivia. In Bolivia, the Left defeat in October Presidential elections was a major collapse as the Left coalition ruled Bolivia for 20 years and the vertical split in the ruling MAS led to the big win of the Right in the Presidential elections.
In Latin America, the politics is polarized between the Right and the Left and through the present century, there has been shift of power in a number of countries from one camp to the other. But earlier, there was a shift in favour of the Left regimes and that phase was called Pink Tide. That phase is withering away with the latest Presidential elections results in the region.
Throughout his decades-long political career, Kast has been a consistent right-wing hardliner. He has proposed building border walls, deploying the military to high-crime areas, and deporting all migrants who are in the country illegally. The campaign this year was Kast’s third run for the presidency and second run off after losing to the outgoing President Gabriel Boric, a former Guerilla leader and a Marxist in 2021 Presidential polls. Boric led a coalition of Left parties and for 2025 Presidential polls, the Communist Party nominee Jeannette Jara got more than 60 per cent votes in the primary and got nominated.
The quick analysis by the observers shows that the Left lost votes in many of its strongholds. It is viewed that many supporters belonging to Left were worried about crime and the entry of a large number of immigrants in Chile during the Left regime. Apart crimes increased though the Boric administration tried its best to control the situation. Things deteriorated in the last six months.
While Chile remains one of the safest countries in Latin America, violent crime has spiked in recent years as organized crime groups have taken root, capitalizing on the country’s porous northern desert borders with coca-producing neighbors Peru and Bolivia, major international marine ports, and surge of migrants, many from Venezuela, susceptible to human and sex trafficking. Kast on his election manifesto focused most on his plans to curb crimes and immigration. This must have helped him at the fag end of the campaign and led to the transfer of all the votes of other right wing contestants in the first round.
Chile is the world’s largest copper producer and a major producer of lithium, and expectations of less regulation and market-friendly policies have already buoyed the local stock market, peso currency and equity benchmark. Kast has promised liberalisation of regulations in respect of the control of the public sector industries. He also promised to impose strict restrictions on the entry of immigrants in search of jobs in Chile.
Seasoned analysts say that the US National Security Strategy announced on December 4 had also its impact on the Chilean middle class who felt that there would be bitter political turmoil in the event of a communist winning the Presidential polls. Kast is known as a Trump man and his supporters have given the slogan of Make Chile Great Again on the lines of Trump’s MAGA programme. Kast has been saying that he will bring golden age in Chile in cooperation with the US led by President Trump. This also must have swayed a section who were not otherwise friendly with Kast’s party.
The Left coalition has conceded the defeat. They are assessing the reasons for such big loss. The Latin American Left faces equally big challenge in 2026 with Presidential elections scheduled in Costa Rica on February 1, Peru on April 12, Columbia on May 31 and Brazil on October 4, the last in the series during the year 2026. The US actions are expected to be more intensive in 2026 against the left regimes in Latin America .. How the left regimes and the coalitions meet this big electoral challenge in 2026, that will be of big interest. (IPA Service)
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