Chile presidential election, 2025
The 2025 Chilean presidential election was held on Sunday, 16 November 2025 (first round) and 14 December 2025 (second round). In the second round the front-runners were the Republican José Antonio Kast and the leftist Jeannette Jara of the Communist Party / Unidad por Chile coalition. Jara won the first round with 26.85 % of the votes (3,476,615 votes) and Kast obtained 23.92 % (3,097,717 votes). But in the second round, Kast won decisively with 58.16–58.18 % (approximately 7,225,021–7,254,850 votes) against 41.82–41.84 % (approximately 5,192,708–5,218,444 votes) from Jara. With this result, Chile shifted to the right, ending the leftist administration of Gabriel Boric and ushering in a conservative, free-market-oriented government focused on security and order under Kast, who took office on 11 March 2026 as the most voted president in Chilean history.
Background
On Sunday, November 16, 2025 Chile held its presidential (first round) and parliamentary elections. What sets this election apart from previous ones is that the first round effectively served as a primary among the three right-wing parties, while on the left, the ruling party’s candidate had already won the official primaries. That candidate stands out as the first time the entire left is represented by a member of the Communist Party, which in turn poses a real communication challenge, since her campaign has sought to convey that she is not only the party’s candidate but also that of the center-left. It has also been quite a challenge to distance her from the government in which she served as labor minister, as it has low approval ratings, and being seen as a continuation of that government risks losing the election. As for the right-wing candidates, there is José Antonio Kast, founder of the Republican Party, with a history linked to trade unionism and the UDI until 2016, the year in which he began his own political path, with a total of three presidential candidacies since then. Today, the political climate works in his favor; rising insecurity, irregular immigration, and the country’s lackluster economic figures support the narrative he has maintained since his first campaign. Furthermore, he was the one who lost the runoff election to Gabriel Boric in 2021, which literally makes him the counterfactual to Boric’s government. As for his campaign message, it is worth noting that he has now left out so-called “values-based” issues such as abortion, although he claims he remains the same person with the same ideas, and has focused on proposing what he calls an “emergency government” to address rising insecurity. In contrast, his first campaign in 2017 revolved around those very issues that he now says are not among the priorities of his platform, even though they were central to his 2021 campaign—right up until the runoff. The current mayor of Ñuñoa, Sebastián Sichel, who was the presidential candidate for the center-right coalition known as Chile Vamos in 2021, conditioned his support for Kast on points he considered non-negotiable; however, he says that the government program proposed today by Kast is more focused on public policies and that it would not be necessary to ask him for that today for the runoff.
In this year’s election, the Chile Vamos candidate, Evelyn Matthei, former mayor of the municipality of Providencia, failed to advance to the runoff. She led the presidential polls a year ago, and from that position ultimately finished in fifth place in Sunday’s election—a result that, beyond being a bitter personal defeat, also symbolizes the final transfer of leadership on the right to new parties with more hardline views. In fourth place was Johannes Kaiser, who was previously a member of Kast’s party but, following disagreements over the second constitutional proposal in 2023, resigned from the party and formed the National Libertarian Party in record time, bringing together other former Republican members. Kaiser has been broadcasting live political commentary on YouTube for years, which has helped him establish his name. He is also the brother of libertarian activist Axel Kaiser, who has also spent years engaging in political advocacy with the economically liberal Foundation for Progress.
Kaiser’s political messaging revolved around spectacle; he set out to tour the country in a bus bearing his face, holding rallies with AC/DC music and taking a more explicit stance than Kast on the hard-line issues, especially during the debates. Thus, Kaiser succeeded in making Kast appear more moderate in comparison to him, positioning himself between Kast and Matthei.
This presidential election also saw the novelty of introducing artificial intelligence into campaign ads, notably those of Franco Parisi and Marco Enríquez Ominami. Parisi came in third, sweeping the entire northern part of the country and securing second place in several municipalities in the south and center. Politically, he defines himself as centrist, though one could still say he is closer to the right than to the left, as his economic proposals align more with the ideas of economic liberalism. He also proposed strengthening the border and doubled down on the idea by advocating for the use of anti-personnel mines. Parisi is highly skilled at managing social media; during the 2021 election, his “Bad Boys” program stood out, particularly because he was a candidate campaigning from Alabama, United States. Among the AI-generated videos shown are those that illustrate his proposals, such as the use of drones at the border and infrastructure construction. His party is a catch-all party, featuring figures like Pamela Jiles, who comes from the Humanist Party, and his voters are those dissatisfied with politics in general; he managed to reach voters in the north by appealing to concerns about security and the mining industry.
For his part, Marco is a filmmaker, and he produced videos in which he launched attacks on the other candidates in order to make an impact. He and the other independent candidates garnered around 1% of the vote, marking his fifth election campaign.
Harold Mayne Nichols, on the other hand, who is connected to the world of soccer administration, used skits in his campaign ads, as well as audio from the former coach of the Chilean national team, Bielsa, who was very popular at the time and lent him his support.
Finally, Eduardo Artés, now running for the third time, conveyed his ideological message directly, appealing to classic, hard-line Marxism. To wrap up, Chile voted for different parties; political forces have been realigned; and the political cycle that began in 2019 with violent protests is now coming to an end with the consolidation of this new political order. Chileans’ priorities have shifted significantly since that year, and the urban destruction caused by those protests ultimately strengthened the right, while the left sought to distance itself from the most destructive groups.
The runoff election took place on Sunday, December 14, 2025 when the country’s next president was decided until 2030. José Antonio Kast, despite trailing Jeannette Jara by 3 points in second place, had a strong chance of winning with the votes of Matthei, Kaiser, and very likely a large percentage of Parisi’s supporters. Jara, having already gone through her coalition’s primary process, has little room to reach new voters; the independent candidates positioning themselves on the left garnered very few votes, so she is also forced to seek support from Parisi’s voters.
Resultados de la elección
Primera vuelta
| Candidato | Partido / Coalición | Votos | Porcentaje |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jeannette Jara | Partido Comunista / Unidad por Chile | 3.476.615 | 26,85 % |
| José Antonio Kast | Partido Republicano | 3.097.717 | 23,92 % |
| Franco Parisi | Partido de la Gente | 2.552.649 | 19,71 % |
| Johannes Kaiser | Partido Nacional Libertario | 1.804.773 | 13,94 % |
| Evelyn Matthei | UDI / Chile Vamos | 1.613.797 | 12,46 % |
| Marco Enríquez-Ominami | Independiente | 154.850 | 1,20 % |
| Harold Mayne-Nicholls | Independiente | 102.504 | 1,27 % |
| Eduardo Artés | Unión Patriótica | 86.041 | 0,66 % |
Segunda vuelta
| Candidato | Partido / Coalición | Votos | Porcentaje |
|---|---|---|---|
| José Antonio Kast | Partido Republicano | 7.254.850 | 58,16 % |
| Jeannette Jara | Partido Comunista / Unidad por Chile | 5.218.444 | 41,84 % |