The Chilean left selects communist Jeannette Jara to compete in the presidential race against a rapidly advancing right in November.

The Chilean left has chosen this Sunday the candidate who will represent them in the first round of the presidential elections on November 16 against an unstoppable right: Jeannette Jara, 51 years old, a member of the Communist Party. With 98% of the votes counted, the public administrator, lawyer, and master’s degree holder in public management has obtained a decisive 60.3%, compared to the social democrat Carolina Tohá, who reaches 27.9%. The representative of Gabriel Boric’s Broad Front, deputy Gonzalo Winter, came in third with 9%, while congressman Jaime Mulet of the Green Social Regionalist Federation (FRVS) finished last with 2.7%. Jara’s election marks a milestone for the Chilean Communist Party: this is the first time since the return to democracy in 1990 that this political force, which was in opposition to the center-left governments during the transition, has successfully positioned a candidate from its ranks in the race for La Moneda, supported — at least institutionally — by the entire sector. The result of this primary also deals a significant blow to the moderate forces of progressivism — embodied by Tohá in this internal competition — who find themselves once again overshadowed by the radical sectors of the left.

“For us, these are sad, disappointing results. It is not what we expected. I called Jeannette Jara just a few minutes ago. I congratulated her on her very decisive results. It is time to reaffirm what we have often said: that we are committed to an agreement that we will fulfill, not only in form but in substance. She becomes the candidate of the center-left, and we will work loyally to ensure that this candidacy offers the country the best possible project to compete against the right,” Tohá said in recognizing her defeat. She pointed to the role of Democratic Socialism and the low turnout: “Personally, I am certainly left with a sadness at this result. But, beyond that, I reaffirm that the voice of a political project — social democracy — has been raised, which is important for Chile and which is important in all circumstances. We cannot overlook it or give up on it. We need to acknowledge that, for some reason, not all the people we would have wanted participated in this vote.”

This primary was marked by low participation, although it was conducted normally throughout the territory, and as is usually the case in Chile, the counts were quick, with results – already categorical – beginning to be known less than an hour after the closing of the polls, at 18:00 Chilean time. With 98% counted, 1.4 million people participated, both in Chile and abroad. Although it was a voluntary vote — only members of parties that did not have primaries were excluded from voting — the figure is below even the least optimistic forecasts. In the 2021 primaries between Boric and the communist Daniel Jadue, where only two parties and two candidates competed, 1.7 million voters participated. That was the baseline set by the government to show whether it had the capacity to mobilize its social base, project unity, and demonstrate that it remains competitive against a strong right that will come to the first round on November 16 with three candidates: Evelyn Matthei (from the traditional right grouped in the Chile Vamos alliance), José Antonio Kast (from the conservative right of the Republican Party), and Johannes Kaiser (from the far-right Libertarian Party).

This level of participation, however, does not frighten the right wing and, on the contrary, represents a sign of weakness. If fewer people showed up than those who participated in the right’s primaries in 2021 — when 1.3 million participated — it was bad news for the Chilean government, as indeed happened this Sunday. However, with the election of a single candidate from the Communist Party, the Chilean presidential election appears polarized. Kast, from the extreme right, has surged in recent weeks according to polls, even surpassing Matthei, the moderate economist who was for months the favorite to take office in March 2026, when Boric’s administration ends.

The unity of the left will be a major test starting tonight. The campaign had intensified in recent weeks, exposing fundamental differences to the public, particularly between Tohá — who started the race as the favorite — and the winning candidate. “Wherever [the Communist Party] has governed in the world, countries have stagnated socially and poverty has spread,” accused the 60-year-old social democratic political scientist in one of the debates. Both former ministers of Boric’s government – Tohá from the Interior and Jara from Labor – showed that they embody very different options regarding the role of the left in 2025 and the needs of a country like Chile, which has been economically stagnant for more than a decade and faces urgent challenges like the security crisis. Throughout this campaign, both highlighted fundamental differences regarding the balance between the state and the market, economic growth, crime management, foreign relations, and control of irregular immigration, among other key issues.

“What is important is that, at the end of the day, the progressive sectors will all be united behind a single candidacy,” said President Boric in the morning, acknowledging a concern shared by the entire political sector: whether the significant distances between official proposals and the heated competition will lead to fragmentation. Whether the winner, Jara, will indeed have a torrent of political power to face a right that is benefiting from favorable winds in 2025, with a citizenry that demands authority, control of insecurity, and economic growth. In fact, the opposition benefits from the fact that a communist militant was chosen. Especially Matthei, who, with Tohá out of the race, will try to attract the moderate center and center-left sectors who are unwilling to support a candidate from the radical left.

Jara’s candidacy, at least publicly, appeared different from the doctrinaire Chilean Communist Party, a collective that has not shifted toward moderate positions (as was the case with the Italian Communist Party and Enrico Berlinguer’s Eurocommunism), still defining itself as Marxist-Leninist and thus has not removed the concept of a dictatorship of the proletariat from its doctrine. The Chilean Communist Party has international commitments with regimes in Cuba, Laos, Vietnam, or North Korea, and its president, Lautaro Carmona, participated last April, for example, in the II International Antifascist Forum held in Moscow, Russia. However, the former Labor Minister has distanced herself from her party’s leadership on substantial issues, such as the need for a new constitutional process, a matter she does not support. But it is not clear whether she will have the strength to carve out her own path, especially with the level of participation with which she was elected and with a vote count — 820,000 — that is below the more than one million supports Boric received in the 2021 primaries, which served as a springboard for his arrival at La Moneda.