The coalition of left and center-left parties has elected Jeannette Jara – former secretary of labor in Gabriel Boric’s government and member of the Communist Party of Chile – as their nominee for the presidency of Chile in the upcoming elections.
According to official data from the electoral service (Servel), Jara obtained more than 60% of the valid votes in the primaries, decisively beating the center-left candidate, former secretary of interior Carolina Tohá (Party for Democracy), who gained 27% of the votes. Far behind were Gonzalo Winter (9%), from the party of current President Gabriel Boric, and Jaime Mulet (2.7%), from the Social Green Party.
Thus, Jara will be the leader of the alliance of the left and the center-left in the upcoming elections, to be held on November 16, 2025.
“Today begins a new path that we will travel together, with the conviction of building a more just and democratic Chile,” the communist militant posted on X after the resounding victory. “In the face of the threat of the extreme right, we respond with unity, dialogue, and hope. Thanks to all those who trusted us! Now let’s keep working.”
Challenges ahead
However, amid waning public support for the current government, such an alliance will still have to overcome an important stumbling block: José Antonio Kast. In the previous elections, Boric managed to defeat the ultra-right-wing Kast with 55.87% to Kast’s 44.13%, in a final that many considered an upset due to the strong result the latter obtained in the first round.
Now Kast will seek his revenge, and polls seem to give him favorable projections. According to the pollster Plaza Pública Cadem, Kast may have about 24% of the valid votes. However, Jara is not too far behind. After the proclamation of her candidacy, Jara immediately found herself in second place with 16%. In third place is the representative of the traditional right, Evelyn Matthei, with 10%, tied with the outsider Franco Parisi who holds 10%.
The prospects are not bad for Jara, whose nomination is a great victory for the Communist Party of Chile (PCCh) which was banned and severely persecuted during the dictatorship of August Pinochet (1973-1990). The party has maintained a modest role in the recent decades of Chilean political life, which has been marked by the neoliberal legacy of the dictatorship.
However, it is important to note that Jara has had disagreements with the Communist Party leadership. A few weeks ago, she said that there were political prisoners in Cuba. The president of the Communist Party publicly contradicted her on this point. On the other hand, many see the presidential candidate’s distance from her party as an effort to attract moderate voters of the left – without which her victory will be impossible.
Who is Jeanette Jara?
Jara, born in Santiago de Chile in 1974, is the daughter of a housewife and a mechanic technician. She has been a member of the Communist Party since the age of 14. She is a politician who is no stranger to public office.
After studying public administration, she was the undersecretary of Social Security during Michelle Bachelet’s first government term (2006-2010).
In Boric’s government, she served as secretary of labor, where she achieved important victories. She obtained the approval of the long-awaited reform of the pension system, which, among other things, increased current and future pensions through a system of solidarity among contributors. She also achieved the reduction of the working day from 45 to 40 hours a week. She is also remembered for her efforts to increase the minimum wage to more than 500,000 Chilean pesos, around 530 dollars.
For now, her candidacy is in the position of potentially being the card that could prevent the triumph of a far-right government in Chile: “I call on you not to let go of our hands, to keep them together, to face the Chilean far-right from the broadest possible political and social unity and stop it. That is our task for what is to come,” said Jara with her voice cracking before her supporters.
