Chile's 2025 presidential runoff exposes a deep defeat for the new left, which has lost support from popular sectors under Gabriel Boric's government. Analyses show low-income voters favored right-wing candidates in the first round, as the political system reveals exhaustion and fragmentation since 2010. Experts urge reflection on rebuilding stable majorities.
The December 14, 2025, presidential runoff between Jeannette Jara and José Antonio Kast will not only decide the next president but also mark the end of an exhausted political cycle. Since 2010, with Sebastián Piñera's victory over the Concertación, Chile has witnessed progressive dispersion of traditional forces, worsened by a proportional electoral system that multiplied actors and reduced internal discipline. The 2019 social outburst deepened this fragmentation, raising expectations that leadership failed to meet with coherent responses.
Under Gabriel Boric's government, the new left entered power focused on post-material causes and symbolic issues, like inclusive language and neoliberal critique, but neglected the daily urgencies of the majority. A Criteria analysis shows that in the first round, low-income groups—with less than 700,000 pesos monthly—chose Kast, Parisi, or Kaiser over Jara, while her support rose in sectors with higher cultural capital. This 'abajista' aesthetic—wanting distance from the rich without joining the poor—alienated the people it claimed to represent, prioritizing rhetoric over economic growth and social mobility.
Though the officialism has learned along the way, its identity seal persists, handing the popular vote to a right-wing candidate who backed the 'Yes' to Pinochet. Natalia Piergentili, director at Feedback, stresses that the next government will face a fragile Parliament and skeptical citizenry, demanding shared political articulation beyond candidates. Cristián Valdivieso of Criteria warns the true defeat is social: the new left lost the most vulnerable, urging honest reflection for a more social-democratic and popular left.
