This past Sunday, general elections took place in Chile. Citizens elected a new president, the entire Chamber of Deputies and half of the seats in the Senate. In the run-off election on December 14, two candidates will determine the next president: Jeanette Jara, a member of the communist party and only candidate for the left side of the political spectrum, who got roughly 27% of the vote, and José Antonio Kast of the far-right Republicanos, with a 24% share.

Sunday’s results and forecasts suggest that Kast will become Chile’s next president. With the country currently experiencing a drive towards political extremes and institutional instability, Kast’s presidency could unfold in two directions: it might either produce a Bukele-like regime focused on law and order with significant popular support that would potentially do away with democracy and the rule of law; or it could face the rapid growth of popular opposition to his austerity plans, possibly in the form of street protests, just like former right-wing President Sebatián Piñera.

Chile and its in-built political balance

For more than two decades, Chile has seen an impressive alternance in power. Indeed, the last time a sitting president was succeeded by a candidate from their own political platform was when Michelle Bachelet took over from Ricardo Lagos in 2006. Since then, the (now deceased) Sebastián Piñera led two right-wing governments (2010-2014, 2018-2022), while Michelle Bachelet and Gabriel Boric presided over left-wing governments (2014-2018 and 2022-2026, respectively). The constituent processes a few years ago followed a similar pattern: one draft leaned left, the other right, and both were ultimately rejected. In fact, both constituent processes included elected drafting bodies: the first, left-leaning body was the result of elections held during Piñera’s presidency, while the second, right-wing body was elected during Boric’s – a perfectly symmetric crossover. Last Sunday’s results might indicate that this trend will continue: the three right to far-right candidates – José Antonio Kast, Johannes Kaiser, and Evelyn Matthei – received a total share of 50,3% of the votes. This means that José Antonio Kast has to be considered the favourite for the run-off on December 14.

This alternance might seem the happy consequence of a healthy system in which the political system is able to process disappointment or frustration with the sitting government, transforming it into support for the respective opposition. However, some elements in this election are new. Whereas Piñera and Bachelet were the leaders of center-right and center-left coalitions that dominated the Chilean political scene for decades, Boric already appeared as the representative of a coalition further to the left of the moderate Concertación. This dynamic has now intensified. Together, Kast and Kaiser, the two far-right and extreme-right candidates, more than tripled the electoral support of Evelyn Matthei, the candidate of the more moderate right, who received a 12,5% of the vote.

For the Chamber of Deputies, Kast’s far-right Republicanos and Johannes Kaiser’s extreme-right Partido Nacional-Libertario (National-Libertarian Party, a more radical spin-off from Republicanos), which together formed the coalition Cambio por Chile, received 2,4 million votes, 200.000 more than Evelyn Matthei’s Chile Grande y Unido, securing eight more seats than the latter.

A closer look at Kast and Chile

The electoral results and forecasts invite a closer look at what a potential government led by Kast might entail.

The movement towards the extremes observable in Chile is, of course, aligned with broader political trends globally – the phenomenon of traditional, (slightly more?) moderate parties being either overtaken on the outside of the political spectrum by more extreme ones or overwhelmed internally by radical factions has become relatively common. Again, as in many other political contexts currently, the Chilean (far and extreme) right around Kast seems to be capitalizing on a discourse diagnosing an almost endless chain of crises and emergencies: public security, immigration, economic stagnation, state inefficiency, etc.

Indeed, the notion that the country is in a state of emergency has become commonplace in today’s political discourse: in line with Nigel Farage in the UK, and Geert Wilders in the Netherlands, Kast has also used the language of emergency to define the substance of what would be his presidency, which he has dubbed a “government of emergency”, with a strong emphasis on security – law and order – and immigration.

Again in line with worldwide trends, Kast is pushing to radically reduce “the state”. In a widely discussed column, his chief advisor, Cristián Valenzuela, claimed that public employees were “parasites”. Echoing the radical agendas of Donald Trump in the United States and Javier Milei in Argentina, Kast has vowed to cut public expenditures by 6 billion USD during his first 18 months as President, even if he has remained extremely vague about where exactly cuts would be made.

Kast, an admirer of Chilean dictator Pinochet – who claimed in the past that, if still alive, the latter would have voted for him – must thus be considered a figure coming from the same ideological corner as El Salvador’s Bukele, former Brazilian President Bolsonaro, and US President Trump.

Yet not all of the critical elements in Chile’s current situation mirror global trends. While far-right authoritarian governments elsewhere usually try to deactivate the judiciary as a potential institutional opposition, the Chilean judiciary is already going through a fundamental crisis. Former President of the Supreme Court, Sergio Muñoz, was impeached and removed from office last year for deciding cases in which his daughter, also a judge, was involved and for failing to take disciplinary measures against her. Another former Justice, Angela Vivanco, was impeached and removed from office together with Muñoz, but for different reasons: in her case, it was the involvement in a large network of corruption that includes politicians, members of the judiciary and the prosecution, as well as entrepreneurs. Indeed, details of that extensive corruption network are still emerging, and are causing further removals of sitting judges. Just a few days ago, a Judge from the Court of Appeals of Santiago, Antonio Ulloa, was impeached and removed by the Senate for his involvement in the same scheme. Another Supreme Court Justice, Diego Simpertigue, might soon be facing the same fate following revelations that, allegedly, a company he later ruled in favour of may have financed a cruise through Europe for him.

And this is not the only corruption scandal affecting the very heart of Chile’s institutional infrastructure. Earlier this year, the Comptroller General, an organ of internal control within the Administration, claimed that as many as 25.000 public employees had travelled outside of Chile while being under sick leave. The Head of the Comptroller General’s office, Dorothy Pérez, has, in fact, become a very popular figure in Chile, based, primarily, on uncovering alleged corruption scandals within the state.

Stable state institutions, a Chilean trademark since the return to democracy and, at least, until the mass protests in 2019, thus show visible cracks. How might these crises, coupled with far-right rhetoric, play out during the next four years?

The outlook

The first key element following Sunday’s elections will be the positioning of Franco Parisi’s Partido de la Gente. Parisi, a controversial populist without a clear ideological line, came in third in the presidential election, garnering almost 20% of the vote. During his campaign, he claimed that Chile is neither “fascist nor communist”; his political discourse rather focuses on people’s discontent, which he exploits with anti-state and anti-bureaucracy positions. His party secured 14 deputies. While he was not immediately available to support either Kast or Jara, the Partido de la Gente might be a factor if the ideologically diverse platform manages to operate as a block. Will Parisi join forces with Kast, potentially disrupting the relationship between state and market in a radical way? In the Chamber of Deputies, the moderate right and far-right coalitions plus Partido de la Gente together hold a constituent majority – though not in the Senate. In any case, it is relatively clear that Kast will use his comfortable majority in Congress to try to implement his programme swiftly. Indeed, it is conceivable that public opinion might be less critical of, for instance, massive layoffs of public employees given the recent corruption scandals. But the key question in this regard seems to be whether the traditional Chilean right will assume its role as a second or third political force on the right spectrum with resignation, or whether it will actively try to function as an internal opposition. Will the Chilean right maintain – and perhaps even deepen – its current drive towards the extreme, or will the traditional right manage to capitalize on the latent discontent?

A second critical factor will be the citizens. Both of Sebastián Piñera’s right-wing governments were shocked by large waves of protests and demonstrations – the first, during his 2010-2014 presidency, among others, by university students led by current President Gabriel Boric; the second, during the 2018-2022 presidency, paved the way to the first constituent process. Given that both constituent processes ultimately failed, and that Parisi has managed to capitalize on disappointment, there may be large potential for a new wave of protests. A key aspect, thus, will be whether Kast manages to implement the significant cuts on public expenditure his programme contains – for instance, by critically reducing social expenses? – without unleashing protests similar to those experienced under Piñera’s governments – the only right-wing governments in Chile since Pinochet’s dictatorship. Should protests emerge, it is extremely likely that Kast’s government would seek to confront them on even harsher terms than the strong repression by police and armed forces witnessed during Piñera’s second government. Would Kast use such clashes to try and perpetuate himself in power, as his role models have already tried, more or less successfully, elsewhere? What role might a weakened, crisis-ridden judiciary play in functioning as a check to authoritarian tendencies of a government that was already during the electoral campaign deeply embedded in a discourse of controlling an emergency situation?

We can only hope that Chile will not look at political alternance with nostalgia after the coming four years.