By Alexander Villegas
SANTIAGO (Reuters) -Chileans overwhelmingly elected Jeannette Jara, the country’s former labor minister, on Sunday to be the incumbent government’s candidate and face off against a field of right-wing contenders in November’s presidential elections.
Jara, a member of Chile’s communist party, won the presidential primaries with 60.31% of the vote while Carolina Toha, the former interior minister and member of the Democratic Socialism party, came in a distant second with 27.91%, with 98.27% of ballots tallied.
Only the governing coalition, led by leftist President Gabriel Boric, participated in Sunday’s primaries while right-wing candidates, who have led most of the presidential polls, are opting to fight it out on election day on November 16.
“The important thing is that by the end of the day, the progressive sectors are going to be behind a single candidate,” Boric told reporters in a press conference after voting in the southern city of Punta Arenas.
Jara, who served as the government’s labor minister until this April, gained popularity when she helped pass the government’s promise to reduce the work week to 40 hours.
Consecutive re-election is not allowed in Chile and Boric, who rode a wave of left-wing optimism to power following widespread protests against inequality, has seen his poll numbers dwindle since taking office.
Many of his promised progressive reforms, including the drafting of a new constitution, failed to materialize or were heavily moderated by Congress and voters became more concerned over rising crime and immigration.
This elevated a number of right-wing candidates to the top of presidential polls, with Evelyn Matthei and Jose Antonio Kast vying for the top spot.
Matthei, an experienced right-wing candidate, has centered her campaign around “order, progress and hope,” while hard-right firebrand Jose Antonio Kast, who lost the election against Boric in 2021, has resurged with a tough-on-crime platform.
If no candidate reaches a majority of votes in November, a runoff election will be held on December 14.
(Reporting by Alexander Villegas; Editing by Chris Reese)
