Far-right candidate Jose Antonio Kast has won a runoff election to become Chile’s 38th president, ousting the centre-left government currently in power.
On Sunday, Kast prevailed in a preliminary tally, defeating former Labour Minister Jeannette Jara, a Communist Party politician who represented the governing centre-left coalition.
Jara conceded defeat shortly after the polls closed in the South American country.
The result marks the latest victory for the far right in Latin America, which has seen a streak of right-wing leaders once considered political outsiders rise to power in countries like Argentina and Ecuador.
The tally also marks a significant comeback for Kast himself, the 59-year-old leader of the Republican Party. The 2025 election marks his third attempt to win the presidency — and his first successful bid.
In the last election, in 2021, he was trounced by outgoing President Gabriel Boric, who won by nearly a 10-point margin.
But Boric, a former student leader who became Chile’s youngest president, had seen his popularity slump to around 30 percent by the end of his four-year term. He was ineligible to run for a second term.
In public opinion polls, voters also expressed frustration with recent spikes in crime and immigration, as well as a softening of Chile’s economy.
Kast has said he would addres those concerns by carrying out a crime crackdown and a campaign of mass deportation, similar to one of his stated inspirations, United States President Donald Trump.
