After Boric, Chile went to extremes: a hard-right candidate won, but the Communist Party received over 5 million votes…
In one election night, Chile managed to achieve something that from the outside looks like a political paradox, but in essence, it is a shock. On one side, it brings José Antonio Kast to power, a man clearly positioned on the far right, with a biography and rhetoric that does not hide sympathies for Pinochet’s legacy. On the other side, more than five million people vote for Jeannette Jara, the candidate of the Communist Party of Chile, who wins 41.84% and achieves one of the best results for an openly communist option in the country’s modern history.
Such an outcome cannot be explained solely by voter fatigue or a “normal” change of government. It points to a deeply polarized society in which the political center has weakened to the point that it practically disappears in the final round. Namely, the choice between Kast and a communist was a choice between two very clear and completely opposing visions of the future. For this to happen at all, something had to go seriously wrong during Gabriel Boric’s term. His promises from 2019 and 2021 did not turn into tangible changes, security, or greater trust in institutions.
This text starts precisely from that double signal sent by Chilean voters. Yes, the majority decided to entrust the state to the hard right. But at the same time, never before has such a large portion of the population consciously and massively aligned behind a candidate from the Communist Party who stands, crucially, significantly to the left of Boric himself. In that tense combination—Kast’s victory and Jara’s strength—the fears, frustrations, and hopes of Chilean society are presented, as well as a deeper story about the end of a phase of “normal politics” and entry into a period where polarization and political risk have become the new norm.
Chile – A Quick Country Profile. Chile today is a country of about 20 million inhabitants, a narrow strip of territory squeezed between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes, over 4,000 kilometers long, but with a relatively small population for that area. The vast majority of the population—about 85%—lives in cities, and nearly a third in the greater Santiago area, the capital and largest city with about seven million inhabitants, which generates almost half of Chile’s GDP.
Religiously, Chile is still majority Christian, but it has been rapidly secularizing in recent years. According to the latest data, just over half the population identifies as Catholic (about 53–54%), around 16% as Protestant/evangelical, while a quarter already has no religious affiliation—making it one of the most secular countries in Latin America. Economically, Chile is a typical open exporter: copper still accounts for about half of total exports, with lithium, fruit (especially cherries), wine, and fisheries playing increasingly important roles. As the world’s largest copper producer and one of the key lithium producers, Chile is deeply intertwined in global supply chains, from Chinese industry to Western energy transition plans.
The Choice Between Kast and a Communist: A Country on Two Opposite Sides
If only the final result is considered, it seems Chile has “gone right,” and significantly so. José Antonio Kast won convincingly and enters the presidential palace as the hardest right-winger in that position since the end of Pinochet’s dictatorship (from the bloody overthrow of President Allende in 1973 until 1990). But as soon as the second line of results is examined, the picture becomes much more complex. His opponent, Jeannette Jara from the Communist Party of Chile, wins 41.84% of the votes—more than five million people ready to stand behind an explicitly communist program (as much as possible in 2025!). This is a figure that would be unimaginable in most other countries. At the same moment Kast celebrates, the communists achieve a historic result.
For a concrete analysis of the situation in Chile, it is essential to keep in mind that these were not elections where the right “stole” voters from the center, nor a classic rotation between moderate left and moderate right. There is no center in the final round. Voters choose between a man who openly invokes Pinochet’s legacy and a candidate from the party that for decades was synonymous with the hardest opposition to that regime. Polarization is total. Traditional parties that “held” Chilean democracy for decades—Christian Democrats, Social Democrats, moderate right—are mere extras in this story.
Kast’s bloc is carried by those who primarily feel fear, or at least claim so. Fear of crime, falling living standards, “loss of control” over borders and everyday life. His voters are often older, more religious, inclined to the idea of a “firm hand,” but also small entrepreneurs and parts of the middle class convinced that the state stifles the economy rather than protecting them from violence. In other words, a typical narrative seen worldwide.
On the other side, Jara’s votes come from another set of emotions—resentment over inequality, anger over failed reforms, the feeling that promises from 2019 were betrayed, and that the only option left is to try something more radical than Boric’s “lukewarm” version of the left.
That is why her 41.84% is as much a political earthquake as Kast’s entry into the presidential office. In fact, we got two earthquakes in one night. This is not a passing, protest result, but disciplined, massive support for a candidate who stands clearly to the left of the previous president and who does not try to soften her own ideological profile. While Kast embodies the desire for “order,” Jara embodies the desire for “justice” that no longer believes in half-measures. The elections showed that a huge part of society no longer sees itself in compromise, but in one of the two poles.
This is also shown by the huge turnout in yesterday’s elections, as high as 85.42%! For comparison, in the last presidential elections in Croatia a year ago, turnout was half that (46.01% in the first round and 44.17% in the second).
What makes this Chilean picture even more dramatic is the fact that both poles actually received confirmation. Neither side is marginalized, neither is just a loud minority. One part of Chile, with these elections, signaled it is ready to forget everything learned about the dangers of authoritarian right, while another part is ready to trust a communist project that openly promises the end of the “neoliberal order.” Between them are certainly those who reluctantly chose the “lesser evil,” but still decided to stand on one side.
Such a result indicates that Chile is not just going through a usual change of government, but through a deep dispute over the very foundations of the social contract. The question is existential. What kind of state is wanted at all? A state that will primarily guarantee security and market freedom, or a state that will primarily redistribute power and wealth, even at the cost of conflict with capital and international centers of power? Everything that follows—from the analysis of Kast and Jara, through Boric’s failures, to the regional context—stems from this initial fact: Chile simultaneously opened the door to the far right in the elections and gave an exceptionally strong mandate to the communists, confirming it lives in a period of intense, confrontational polarization.
José Antonio Kast: The Return of Hard Right in Pinochet’s Country
José Antonio Kast appeared in Chilean politics long before becoming a symbol of the great right-wing turnaround. Born into a family of German immigrants, he grew up in a home where conservative values—family, church, obedience to authority—were taken for granted (like many others who came to Chile from Europe, including part of the Croatian emigration). Later, unpleasant facts emerged: his father was a member of Hitler’s NSDAP in his youth, his older brother a minister in Pinochet’s dictatorship. That biographical line alone, some (but only some) will say, would not be decisive if Kast had not consciously continued walking the same path in his political career. As a student, he openly supported Pinochet in the 1988 plebiscite, and later, as a deputy for the conservative UDI party, he regularly and actively defended the “positive” sides of the military regime.
External details seem to reinforce the image. Kast is a devout Catholic, father of nine children, with a public image of a man proud to be the “head of a traditional family.” On social issues, he takes positions that are very hard even by Chilean standards—he opposes abortion without any exceptions, does not accept same-sex marriages, fears gender policies and anything he perceives as “ideology” in schools.
But the key to his rise is not in culture wars, but in security and fear. After years on the right edge of parliament, Kast realizes the moment of maturity comes only when crime, migration, and the sense of chaos start creeping into the everyday life of the middle class (or any class fearing it will fall into the one below!). In the campaign that brought him to the presidential office, he focuses maximally on those themes. He promises “order” and “peace,” the military in the most dangerous zones, mass deportations of irregular migrants, physical fortification of the northern border, harsher penalties, and prisoners without comfort, contacts, or privileges. While Boric’s language was technical and navigated institutional reforms, Kast speaks in simple images: Who will dare take the bus at night? Will children get home safely? That certainly resonates with voters.
At the same time, he carefully learns from his 2021 defeat. Then, some voters were driven away by his statements on complete abortion ban and nostalgia for Pinochet. In the newer campaign, he cunningly pushes those themes to the background—not renouncing them, but not putting them on posters. Instead, he emphasizes the economy and promises a return to the “golden” nineties through lower taxes, smaller state apparatus, more space for entrepreneurship… While openly promising not to touch basic social programs, trying to calm fears of those dependent on state benefits. The result is a politician profile that simultaneously attracts the traditional right, part of the business elite, and a layer of tired, insecure voters who want “someone who dares to bang their fist on the table.”
Kast is, of course, part of a broader global trend. His slogans on borders, crime, and “defense of ordinary people” fit well into the rhetoric of Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, and Javier Milei. He gladly poses with such figures, adopting their vocabulary and strategies. In him, Latin America’s legacy of authoritarian right merges with the new, populist scene that communicates via memes, social networks, and “anti-woke” stories. In the Chilean context, that has additional, great weight. He is not just a conservative, but the first president after the transition who openly rehabilitates parts of the former dictatorship’s discourse—and still wins in free elections.
At the same time, Kast shows a degree of pragmatism when state interests hit the wall of ideology. For example, in relations with China, one can see how the hard “anti-communist reflex” weakens before the fact that the Chinese market is crucial for Chilean copper and lithium. In interviews, he admits that breaking relations “overnight” is not an option because it would hit “thousands of Chilean families,” so instead he talks about long-term diversification. Similarly with multilateral agreements. Though he does not share Boric’s enthusiasm for international conventions and climate diplomacy (obviously), he is aware that the Chilean economy is tied into a network of contracts it cannot lightly cut.
Copper and lithium are two raw materials without which the current Chilean growth model practically does not exist. Copper has been the backbone of Chilean exports and the main source of foreign currency for decades: the state, through the state company Codelco and a series of private mines, finances a large part of the budget precisely through this metal. Every fluctuation in copper prices on the world market directly reflects on Chilean GDP, exchange rates, and the state’s ability to finance social programs. That is why copper is more than a commodity—it is a kind of macroeconomic climate in which Chile lives.
Lithium, on the other hand, is newer but equally important geopolitically. The deserts in the north of the country are part of the “lithium triangle,” and Chile has some of the world’s largest reserves of this metal crucial for batteries, electric vehicles, and the transition to a “green economy.” This means interests of the US, China, Europe, and global corporations intertwine around Chilean lithium, and every future government must decide whether to treat lithium as a strategic national lever or just another export niche. Together, copper as the old pillar and lithium as the “new star” make Chile increasingly talked about not only as Latin America’s export “model,” but also as one of the key arenas for future global energy and technology competition.
All this together makes Kast both recognizable and dangerously new. Recognizable because his views evoke memories of the military boot, conservative morality, and market fundamentalism. New because he manages to package that old framework in the language of “fighting crime” and “protecting the ordinary person” in an era of insecurity. His rise is thus not just a return of one ideological tradition, but also a test of how far polarized Chilean society wants to go in search of a sense of security—even if the price is dealing with the ghosts of its own horrific and not-so-distant past!
Jeannette Jara and the Unexpected Triumph of the Communist Party
While most international media, understandably, focused on the winner Kast, the real “quiet shock” of these elections lies in Jeannette Jara’s result. Former labor minister in Boric’s government, longtime member of the Communist Party of Chile, a woman from a working-class, union environment—wins over five million people. This means almost every second voter who rejected Kast consciously circled the candidate who does not hide behind left-wing euphemisms, does not talk about a “progressive center” or “broad coalitions,” but openly advocates communist tradition and the idea of deep transformation of Chilean capitalism.
Jara is in many ways Boric’s antipode, though formally they were part of the same ruling coalition for years. He grew out of the generation of student leaders, with a discourse combining feminism, ecology, human rights, and identity themes (many will be reminded of the ruling structure in Zagreb). She comes from the “older” left: unions, labor law, pension system, collective agreements, public services. While Boric foregrounded the story of a new constitution and symbolic break with the “neoliberal era,” Jara from the start of the campaign spoke the language of real economy and capitalist contradictions. Programmatically, she is indeed “to the left of Boric.” She clearly advocates stronger taxation of the rich, larger public sector, more radical reform of privatized pension funds, greater state role in energy and mining. Where Boric, upon coming to power, pressured by reality, began compromising with the market and credit ratings, Jara in the elections offered what part of the left expected from the beginning—consistent, old-fashioned, but coherent class politics.
Her result is therefore not just a consequence of the “discipline” of the traditional left base, but also a reflection of disappointment in Boric’s moderation and stalls among part of the voters. Interestingly, those same voters did not succumb to apathy but consciously want “leftier than left.” Many who in 2019 disrupted subway fares and marched under the slogan “dignidad” felt that Boric, once seated in the presidential office, left them halfway. The new constitution failed, tax reform stalled, pensions did not change as much as expected, and the state, viewed from Santiago’s periphery, is still seen as an apparatus working for the rich and middle class, not those at the bottom. When Jara appeared, with clear ties to unions and the Communist Party that was always the “stubborn left” in every coalition, part of those people recognized in her a chance to return to the original zeal of the protests—but this time through the ballot box.
It is particularly interesting how Jara managed to connect several different layers of the left. The traditional communist core—older generations remembering the party as illegal opposition to the dictatorship, families of repression victims, militant unionists—was with her almost by inertia. But in the campaign, part of the younger, urban left joined her—those who sought bolder moves from Boric and see in her readiness to confront big capital’s economic interests. Also public servants and employees in education and health, who felt overburdened and insufficiently protected, and for whom Jara’s rhetoric about “revaluing public work” was very concrete.
An important part of the story is her style. Though the program is hard left, the way Jara communicates it is not, say, revolutionarily loud, but almost administratively calm. No theatrical performances on the edge of hysteria, no charismatic euphoria. Instead, a figure of a politician who speaks calmly, often in technical vocabulary, but behind those numbers and tables stands a very clear conclusion that the existing order is unjust and needs to be changed in favor of workers and the poorer.
Historically, five million votes for a Communist Party candidate means Chilean left not only survived Boric’s mandate but also radicalized. While part of the center withdrew toward Kast, part of the disappointed electorate shifted leftward, toward a party that (unlike many leftists in Europe) does not try to hide its name or history.
Jara’s strength changes how the Chilean political scene should be read after these elections. It means radical left has simultaneously become an indispensable pole of the system. Every Kast move, every security reform, every cut in public spending will now unfold with awareness that on the other side stands a serious, organized opposition with legitimacy from almost half the electorate and whose patience limit is lower than that of the liberal center. For Boric and his generation, this is also a personal lesson—if moderate left does not deliver results, the void is not necessarily filled by the center, but by someone ready to go one step further left—and who, as Jara showed, no longer acts as a marginal figure but still as a potential future president.
Life Between Kast and Communists: Everyday Life, Region, and Possible Outcomes
To understand what it means to live in a country where Kast stands on one side and the Communist Party on the other as the two main political forces, one must look at what an ordinary day in Chile in 2025 looks like. The fundamental feeling threading through conversations, polls, and statements is no longer hope, as in 2019, but a combination of fear and exhaustion. People talk about crime, armed robberies, a “new type” of violence brought by organized gangs, neighborhoods no longer visited after dark. Yes, statistics still show Chile is safer than many neighbors, but the subjective impression is different. In people’s minds, something has broken. There is much less trust that the state will appear when needed, whether as a policeman on the street or a judge who won’t release a violent offender in a week.
At the same time, there is another form of insecurity—economic. Chile remains a country with relatively low formal poverty and high per capita GDP in Latin American terms, but that means little to someone choking on loan installments, paying private healthcare because public does not work fast enough, or living in a camp on the city edge with no chance to enter the real estate market. For many, the pandemic exposed how fragile the middle class is. Three months without income and most families are on the edge. Boric’s government tried to mitigate some of those blows, raising the minimum wage, strengthening pension supplements, but the structure remained unchanged. That is why today, when talking about “insecurity,” it often also means the fact that one unforeseen expense like illness, layoff, rent hike… turns into an existential problem. All this is, of course, very typical for a capitalist economy (and strongly reminiscent of the US).
In such a context, Kast and Jara become two different reactions to the same unease. Boric found himself in those pincers between expectations of a small revolution and administrative limits, trying a bit from one side, a bit from the other, but in the end no one feels they got what they wanted.
At the same time, Chile does not live in a vacuum. Political boundaries are drawn not only within Santiago, but also on the Buenos Aires–Washington–Beijing axis. Milei in Argentina, with radical language against “collectivism,” functions as a mirror and encouragement for Kast’s voters—if there it’s possible to sweep old parties and “cut to the bone,” why not here. Lula in Brazil, on the other hand, shows how fragile the new left is when facing polarized society and powerful conservative opposition. In Washington sits an administration that openly favors hard-right, pro-American allies, while China remains the largest buyer of Chilean copper and lithium, regardless of who is in power. All this means every Kast decision on security, migrants, or mines will have a foreign policy dimension, whether through praise and credits or pressures and conditions.
In the country’s internal life, this can translate into several possible scenarios. One is the darkest, feared primarily by those remembering the seventies: the logic of “order” slowly eats democratic controls, emergency state turns into new normal, state criticism increasingly treated as a security problem rather than legitimate disagreement. In that key, polarization with communists on the other pole can serve as constant justification: “it’s us or them.” In air-conditioned security apparatus offices, polarized society always looks like an argument for additional powers and more repression.
The second scenario is open social clash. Five million votes for Jara did not disappear with result announcement; they can become energy for a new round of protests if Kast aggressively targets social programs, unions, or migrant communities. In that case, the street returns as a political actor, perhaps even more radical and distrustful of institutions than in 2019. Polarization then exits TV studios and enters schools, workplaces, neighborhoods, where people increasingly struggle to agree even on basic facts, let alone ideology.
The third, less dramatic but perhaps most realistic scenario is a kind of wearing down of the edges. Kast, faced with parliamentary, judicial, and international obligation limits, will likely have to abandon part of the hardest promises. Jara and the Communist Party will remain strong opposition but will also be forced to choose battles, as a radical program is hard to turn into a majority outside electoral euphoria. In that space between oversized fears and oversized hopes, there is a possibility that over time a new version of the center reappears. Perhaps not in the old “third way” form, but as an attempt to combine security and social justice without constant firefighting.
For now, however, Chile lives in a period where it is normal to walk between two poles that see each other as existential threats. Everyday life is filled with very concrete worries. Kast and the communists now respond to those worries, each with their own language and version of the future. What will determine the coming years is not just who won these elections, but whether society will manage to exit the logic of constant “either-or” and find a way for security and dignity to stop being seen as mutually exclusive goals.
About the Author
