After two years of social unrest, Chileans favor Kast’s order proposal

After two years of street protests and the election of a body with a majority on the left to rewrite the Constitution, Chileans surprised analysts, markets and even themselves on Sunday night.

The results of the first electoral round showed that voters favored the hard-right presidential candidate and gave important margins to the conservatives in Congress.

With 99.99% of the tables scrutinized until Monday, the lawyer and former legislator Jose Antonio Kast obtained 27.91% of the votes, while the leftist deputy Gabriel Boric came in second place, with 25.83%.

As none of them exceeded 50% of the votes, they will have to face each other in a ballot on December 19.

Kast, an ultra-conservative who advocates for crackdown on crime and curbing illegal immigration, appears to have the momentum to prevail in the second round, although Boric may still achieve a victory if he manages to win over voters from the center, analysts said.

Still, the results in Congress may put the radical changes to the free market model that Boric promised out of reach. Left and center-left coalitions lost significant ground in both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, and neither the right nor the left was expected to emerge with a functional majority.

The results were a long way from the May elections when Chileans mainly opted for left-wing independents to form part of the Constitutional Convention that drafted the new constitution.

“The right wing got 25 out of 50 votes in the Senate, so it will be very difficult for either of the two main Senate coalitions to pass laws,” said Kenneth Bunker, director of political consultancy Tresquintos.

“For the conservative sectors, this is not a problem because they are in favor of the status quo, but for the opposition it is very bad news,” he added.

The markets reacted with increases to the electoral results. The main index of the Santiago stock exchange, the IPSA, rose 8% in mid-morning trading, while the peso gained ground against the dollar.

Mary-Therese Barton, director of Emerging Debt at Pictet Asset Management, said the peso rally was due to relief that the composition of Congress is divided, which will act as a restraining force if Boric wins.

“The first reaction from the markets has certainly been positive. It has less to do with the presidential side and more with Congress, ”he said.

Looking ahead to the ballot, eyes will be on how successful both candidates will be in winning voters outside of their traditional bases of support.

And perhaps the biggest mystery will be how the supporters of the liberal economist Franco Parisi will vote, who lives in the United States, never set foot in Chile during the campaign and surprised by garnering a third place with 12.8% of the votes.