Chilean voters are heading to the polls on Sunday to vote for President Gabriel Boric’s successor. The sitting president himself is out of the race due to Chile’s electoral law, which means the country will be voting for a leader who will serve between 2026 and 2030. 

There are eight candidates in the running. If none secures an absolute majority, the top two will go to a runoff on December 14. Chile will also renew 155 deputies, while some regions will vote to renew a total of 23 senate seats. 

The most recent polls show Boric’s party successor, Jeanette Jara, heading into the contest with a lead over far-right candidates José Antonio Kast and Johannes Kaiser, who are fighting neck and neck for second place. Analysts, however, project that the lead would not be enough to avoid a runoff. 

The election is set to mark a watershed moment in Chilean politics, as it will be the first time since the return of democracy in 1990 that two far-right candidates and Pinochet sympathizers have a chance of making it into the runoff. Not only that, but whoever makes it there is also favored to win. 

According to Alberto Mayol, a political analyst and sociologist at the University of Santiago, Jara has no chance of getting 50% or more of the vote in the run-off. Even if she captured the vote of other left and center candidates in the race, she would only gather 43 to 45% of the vote at most. Estimates place votes for the right, split between Kast, Kaiser, and a third candidate named Evelyn Matthei, to hover slightly over 50% in the first round. 

“Whichever right-wing candidate makes it to the runoff will be Chile’s next president,” he said. 

Jeannette Jara is the presidential candidate representing Unidad por Chile (Unity for Chile), the government-backed center-left coalition. A longtime member of the........

© Buenos Aires Herald