Chile to hold general election

Chile’s electorate will head to the polls to vote in a general election today.

Voters will elect a new president, in addition to 27 of the 50 members of the country’s upper legislative house, all 155 members of the lower house and over 300 regional board members.

The election campaign has been one of the most polarized in recent memory and is seen as a clash between the country’s far-left and the far-right. Gabriel Boric of the left-wing Social Convergence party is facing Jose Antonio Kast and his far-right Republican Party. Kast took Chilean politics by surprise after a groundswell of online support boosted him to the forefront of the election.

Polling currently indicates that Kast holds a very slight edge over Boric. As such, expect Kast to earn a slight plurality of votes, though he is unlikely to earn the 50% needed to win the election today. Consequently, expect a runoff election between Kast and Boric. If Kast is again victorious, expect him to immediately begin advancing his agenda of increasing police funding and combating the influx of migrants from Haiti and Venezuela—a platform which has earned him comparisons to Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro.