The second round of presidential elections will be held in Chile on December 14.
Janet Jara, representing the ruling center-left coalition "Unity for Chile", and José Antonio Cast from the conservative Republican Party have qualified for the second round.
The current president, Gabriel Boric, is not allowed by the constitution to run for a second consecutive term.
Jara, a member of the Chilean Communist Party, headed the Ministry of Labor and Social Security in Boric's government. Her platform focuses on improving working conditions and supporting small businesses. Her proposals include raising the minimum wage from the current 529 000 pesos ($577) to 750,000 pesos ($817), subsidies for entrepreneurs and infrastructure development.
Like her opponent, Jara, in the face of rising crime in Chile in recent years, promises to take measures to improve the security situation, including by modernizing the police force, building prisons and deploying armed forces to protect borders and combat illegal migration.
At the beginning of the election campaign, Jara said that Chile would benefit from joining the BRICS. However, in October, when asked directly whether she wanted the country to join the group, she noted that today “global geopolitics strongly influences“ the decisions that the next president of Chile must make, and that, in her opinion, the South American country should develop its relations simultaneously in three directions: the United States, China and the European Union. Jara criticized Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, but spoke out against military US intervention in the country.
Kast faced Borić in the December 2021 runoff, but lost. He advocates reduced government intervention in the economy and stricter measures to fight crime. If elected, he intends to reduce corporate taxes, reduce government spending, and create an "emergency government" to "restore order." He also promises to build barriers on the borders with Bolivia and Peru. He opposes euthanasia, abortion, divorce, and same-sex marriage.
Kast criticized Borić's decision to accept Brazilian President Lula da Silva's invitation to attend the BRICS summit in Rio de Janeiro in July. The conservative politician also spoke favorably about the idea of a US military operation in Venezuela.
After the first In the second round, Caste's former rivals, Johannes Kaiser and Evelina Mattei, who finished fourth and fifth respectively, have announced their support for him. Franco Parisi of the center-right Popular Party, who came in third, did not support any of the candidates who qualified for the runoff.
According to a Cadem survey published on November 29, 46% of respondents were ready to vote for Caste, and 34% for Jara. The remaining 20% of respondents did not answer the question, but said they did not intend to vote or had not yet decided who to run for. About 60% of respondents also said they disapproved of the current government's performance. Chileans cite the worsening security situation, illegal migration and economic stagnation as key problems. Polling stations will be open from 8:00 a.m. local time to 6:00 p.m. h. Voting is mandatory in Chile.