Red vs. Brown in Chilean Presidential race?

The Chilean Presidential election on December 14 should be an especially interesting one. It’s a runoff between a Communist candidate and one from the Chilean Republican Party. The latter is, appropriately enough in the American political vocabulary, a hard right party.

Deutsche Welle reports in English: (1)

The text summary to the report notes: “The election campaign was dominated by concerns over rising crime and immigration in Chile, with calls from the right for mass deportations. Speaking to supporters after polls closed, Jeanette Jara criticized her right wing opponents' [José Antonio Kast‘s] fear-based campaigns.”

Jara served as the Labor Minister in the outgoing government of the headed by the Unidad por Chile (Unity for Chile) electoral coalition. As Página/12 reports:

Jeannette Jara's triumph in Chile's first round of elections has a bittersweet taste for the left. The Communist candidate won with 26.8% of the votes over the far-right José Antonio Kast, who achieved 23.96%. Both will contest the second round on December 14. In a surprising third place was the right-wing populist Franco Parisi with 19.61%, outside the predictions of the polls, and displacing the far-right libertarian Johannes Kaiser, who obtained 13.93%.

"Don't let fear freeze your hearts. Do not believe in imaginary solutions, heads that hide behind armored glass. Our future is in our children," Jara told supporters gathered outside the bunker near La Moneda Palace in the center of the capita city. The candidate of an alliance made up of left-wing and center-left parties defended the policies of Gabriel Boric's government, including reducing the working week to 40 hours, increasing pensions and the minimum wage. [emphasis in original] (2)

It’s not encouraging to see that well over half the voters supported far-right candidates. Especially when they can see the catastrophic effects of Argentine President Javier Milei’s crackpot Trumpista-style rightwing policies next door in Argentina.

José Antonio Kast is very much in the Trump political mentality, like El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele.

On the other hand, as Steve Ellner has observed, Trump’s success and his crassly imperialist attitude toward Latin America has also galvanized the left in many parts of Latin America.

When Donald Trump assumed the presidency in January 2025, the Pink Tide governments in Latin America were losing ground. The approval rating of Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, reached the lowest of his three presidential terms, while that of Colombia’s Gustavo Petro was a mere 34 percent. And in the wake of the fiercely contested results of the July 2024 presidential elections in Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro found himself isolated in the region.

Now, less than a year later, the political landscape has shifted. Trump’s antics — such as his renaming of the Gulf of Mexico, the weaponization of tariffs, and aggressive military actions in the Caribbean and Pacific — have revitalized Pink Tide governments and the Left in general. Latin America has reacted to Trump’s invocation of the Monroe Doctrine with a surge of nationalist sentiment, mass demonstrations, and denunciations from political figures across most of the spectrum, including some on the center right. [my emphasis] (3)

Notes:

(1) Chile elections: Communist Party candidate Jeanette Jara appears to be in lead. DW News YouTube channel 11/17/2025. <https://youtu.be/Gi589t64T2w?si=1GoqzUMyg5M3YvYV> (Accessed: 2025-17-11).

(2) López San Miguel, Mercedes (2025): Elecciones en Chile: un triunfo de Jara que será cuesta arriba en el balotaje. Página/12 1.11.2025. <https://www.pagina12.com.ar/2025/11/17/elecciones-en-chile-un-triunfo-de-jara-que-sera-cuesta-arriba-en-el-balotaje/> (Accessed: 2025-17-11). My translation to English.

(3) Ellner, Steve (2025): Trump’s Provocations Are Bolstering Latin America’s Left. Jacobin 11/13/2025. <https://jacobin.com/2025/11/trump-latin-america-left-opposition> (Accessed: 2025-17-11).