Presidential election: Chile at a crossroads
Jeannette Jara of the Communist Party has won the first round of the Chilean presidential election. However, because together the four right-wing candidates secured more than two-thirds of the votes, observers say her right-wing populist opponent José Antonio Kast has a good chance of winning the run-off vote. The son of a German Wehrmacht officer, Kast has close ties to the Spanish right-wing populist party Vox.
Cycles end but democracy must continue
El País hopes for democratic stability in Chile:
“Since the social uprising of 2019, the country has been oscillating between two extremes. ... What we see now is an electorate that wants order and certainties. ... Kast promises 'common sense' in response to what he describes as an excessive loss of identity and unworkable social policies [under the Boric government]. ... However his project entails setbacks for hard-won rights, a return to authoritarianism and anti-political discourse. ... Chile has sent a clear message: elections are won and lost, cycles come to an end. ... What must not end is the conviction that democracy works.”
Latin America's left has failed
The leftist wave on the subcontinent is clearly losing momentum, the Süddeutsche Zeitung observes:
“The reasons for this are manifold. Hardly any of its protagonists have succeeded in actually solving the structural problems in their own countries – inflation in Argentina, poverty in Ecuador. Others, such as Morales in Bolivia or Chávez's successor Nicolás Maduro, under whom Venezuela has degenerated into a dictatorship, have also failed due to their arrogance. And hardly any of them have come up with an answer to one of the greatest challenges of our time: the drug cartels that are increasingly permeating Latin American society.”