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In Chile’s presidential election, leftist Janet Jara has led the first round over far-right candidate José Antonio Casto, and it looks like the country will head to a run-off in December.
Published November 17, 2025
Partial results from Chile’s presidential election show leftist former labor minister Janet Jara and far-right politician José Antonio Casto heading to a runoff in December.
Election authority Saber said 52.39% of the total votes had been counted on Sunday night, with Jara, a 51-year-old communist candidate representing an eight-party coalition, leading with 26.58%, followed by Kast with 24.32%.
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The next front-runner, far-right lawmaker Johannes Kaiser, conceded defeat.
The election campaign was overshadowed by growing public anxiety over a spike in murders, kidnappings and extortion in what had long been one of the safest countries in Latin America.
The increase in crime is widely attributed to foreign criminal groups, and this coincides with Chile’s immigrant population doubling since 2017. Immigrants currently make up 8.8 percent of the country’s residents.
Mr Jara has promised to expand police forces, scrap bank secrecy rules to fight organized crime and address cost-of-living pressures.
Casto, who is often compared to US President Donald Trump, has pledged to build a wall, fence and ditch along the Chile-Bolivia border to stop immigration from poorer neighbors to the north such as Venezuela.
Despite leading in the first round, Hara faces a difficult path to victory in the Dec. 14 run-off as the total vote share of right-wing candidates far exceeds that of left-wing candidates.
Polls consistently predict that Kast will defeat her in a head-to-head matchup. Jara’s tally was lower than pre-election expectations, but Kast’s was higher. Pollsters had predicted she would receive 27% to 29% of the vote, compared to 20% to 22% for Mr. Casto.
The election is being watched as a sign of the broader fortunes of the South American left, which has suffered recent setbacks in countries such as Argentina and Bolivia.
