Overview
- Chileans are casting ballots in a first round with eight candidates, and projections point to no outright majority and a December 14 runoff.
- Jeannette Jara, a former labor minister from the governing bloc, is favored to advance but is widely viewed as an underdog in a head‑to‑head second round.
- Right‑wing contenders José Antonio Kast, Johannes Kaiser and Evelyn Matthei have centered their campaigns on migration and crime with hardline proposals that recall dictatorship‑era policies.
- Recent polling shows Kaiser gaining on Kast, introducing uncertainty over which right‑wing candidate will face Jara in the runoff.
- Beyond the presidency, voters are choosing about half the Senate and all 155 lower‑house seats under mandatory voting for roughly 15.8 million citizens.