Jeannette Jara, a Communist Party member and former Minister of Labor, easily won the ruling party primaries and will be its presidential candidate to face the right in November. With 99% of the votes counted, Jara achieved a solid 60%, above Carolina Tohá (28%), expressing a severe defeat of the former Concertación, and Gonzalo Winter (9%), whose result confirmed the failure of the Frente Amplio. The day was also marked by a surprisingly low turnout, which barely reached 9% of the electoral roll. Here is an initial analysis and perspective of this new political moment.
By J.M., Anti-capitalist Movement
Automatically translated by AI.
What the primaries left
After the neoliberal progressivism primaries, Jeannette Jara, militant of the Communist Party, has been chosen as the standard-bearer who will compete in November. With 99% of the tables counted, the PC militant, lawyer and former Minister of Labor in the government of Gabriel Boric, obtained a resounding 60% of the votes. Far behind was the representative of the former Concertación (Democratic Socialism), Carolina Toha, also a former minister, who reached 28%, while Deputy Gonzalo Winter, representative of the Broad Front, added just 9%. In the last place was Jaime Mulet, from the Social Green Regionalist Federation, with 2.7%.
The nomination of Jara constitutes a historic moment for the Communist Party: it is the first occasion, since the return to democracy in 1990, in which it manages to push its own candidate towards the Currency with the formal support of the entire so-called center-left bloc. This result is also a severe setback for Democratic Socialism with Carolina Toha, while the Broad Front maintains a constant electoral decline that in these elections ratified the disaffection with the candidate of President Boric’s party.
The scenario was marked by a low turnout: barely 1.4 million people went to the polls. Although the voting was voluntary, except for party members who did not participate in the primaries, the final figure was even below the most pessimistic scenarios. Only 9% of the 15 million eligible voters showed up to vote. By way of comparison, in the 2021 primaries, in which Gabriel Boric and Daniel Jadue faced off, 1.7 million people participated, despite the fact that only two candidates were measured on that occasion.
The threshold of participation was seen as a key indicator by the ruling party, which hoped to overcome at least that precedent to prove its mobilization capacity, show cohesion and give signs of strength in front of the right, which this year will compete with three candidates in the first round on November 16: Evelyn Matthei, representative of the traditional right grouped in Chile Vamos; José Antonio Kast of the Republican Party, who has turned to moderate his speech in the contest with Matthei; and Johannes Kaiser, standard-bearer of the ultra-right of the Libertarian Party.
The electoral result shows the wear and tear of a coalition that arrives weakened after more than three years of Gabriel Boric’s mandate. Far from consolidating a new political space at the national level, the ruling party expressed in the primaries and in the campaign that preceded it a delicate balance for who would head the bloc. The low participation reflects the cost of having chosen the Boric government to give continuity to neoliberal policies, aligning itself behind a cabinet composed of the majority of the old Concertación, decisions that undoubtedly bet on the electoral polarization that the right discursively takes possession of and, at the same time, wearing down the Broad Front’s narrative about the changes it promoted upon its arrival to power, adding disappointment about the project.
This process opened a new political moment at the national level that is framed in a world situation marked by the advance of the ultra-right, economic crisis and wars, where social and political polarization is increasing. Inscribed in this dynamic, the hardest hit were those identified by the continuity of the transition policies, although the Communist Party candidate maintained relative ambiguity and distance from her own party to channel a voice linked to figures like Bachelet and oscillate with cursory criticism of some government measures.
The appointment of Jeannette Jara as the presidential candidate of the ruling party has been well received by the markets. On Monday, the Chilean peso showed a strengthening against the US dollar, and the country’s main stock market indicator, the S&P IPSA, experienced a rise of 0.18%, reflecting a positive mood among investors after the definition of the candidacy.
The Communist Party, between consolidating its integration into the regime and its debates
The Communist Party’s discourse still manages to attract a sector of the electorate that maintains its rejection of the neoliberal model. However, Jeannette Jara presents herself at the same time as a moderate and responsible figure for big capital, capable of building broad national agreements and guaranteeing governability, even in the face of a Congress that could come under the control of the right. His role in the approval of key reforms such as the 40-hour law and the pension reform (strengthening the AFP) has allowed him to project a reliable image for big business, proposing a discursive turn to the center in search of championing that sector that found its vote in the old Concertación.
On that journey, during the campaign, he went through several internal debates that led to public exchanges with Lautaro Carmona, president of the PC, when he raised the possibility of promoting a new constituent process in an eventual government of hers or the integration of Daniel Jadue to her command. In both cases, the candidate came out to firmly deny those positions, reinforcing her strategy of presenting herself as a figure for the political center. Along the same lines, she insisted: “If I am elected candidate for the Presidency and then President, the government will be led by me, as President; the mandate is given by the people whom they elect.” After Sunday’s election, once again the voices of the possibility of even renouncing the CP emerged to unite the whole of Democratic Socialism and the FA in the same list on all electoral fronts, a story that the spokesmen of the CP have let flow without ruling it out.
However, this tension is only the most visible expression of a trajectory that the CP has followed for years in the integration as a central pillar of the regime, not only for its role in the trade union and social leadership as a dam of containment in the mobilizations, but also for the direct positioning in the design of governments since the return to democracy, a movement that defines the current dynamic as those who will lead the presidential race. This process will consolidate the PC in this integration, accelerating tensions and, at the same time, assuming a position that links them to the political center at a time of high polarization with a right that is growing in electoral intention, while the internal process of the ruling bloc does not rule out debates and disassociations so as not to be left behind by a “communist”, as the PS economist Oscar Landerretche would have already expressed or, as was maintained in a growing “anti-communist” discourse in the presidential debates by the hand of the defeated Toha. A tension that will push on this strategic orientation of the PC.
A new political moment and its challenges
The right has already begun to deploy an openly “anti-communist” discourse, doing the same as in the first round sectors of the former Concertación and actors of traditional politics; that campaign will intensify at the discursive level and also opens possibilities in the neoliberal progressive bloc to accommodate pieces in the search for parliament using this strategy.
With the victory of Jara, Evelyn Matthei (Chile Vamos) will seek to attract those reluctant voters to support a representative of the CP. Either way, Kast’s presence with Kaiser pushing and Jara on the November ballot anticipates a highly polarized presidential campaign within the context of the regime. In this scenario, Matthei will try to consolidate itself into a political center capable of attracting an electorate forced to vote since 2022 and that could tip the balance in the final definition.
According to the latest Cadem poll published on the same day of the primaries, Evelyn Matthei suffered a sharp drop of nine points, remaining at 10% of preferences, while José Antonio Kast rose to first place for the first time, reaching 24% of voting intention.
It remains to be seen how the electoral process will develop, which will involve a constant challenge and analysis from the revolutionary left, since the anti-communist discourse comes hand in hand with repressive measures, anti-rights and reaffirmation of the economic model in a situation in which the political dial is running to the right, impregnating all the representatives of the regime, while polarization at the political level finds no place in a representation outside the old variants.
The half measures of progressivism have strengthened the Trump and Milei of the world, which lead us more and more to barbarism and wars, demonstrating that governing at the pace of neoliberalism opens space for these variants that are postulated in polarization and crisis. If the PC continues its path of adaptation to the center, it will contribute to this dynamic.
Today, Jara’s victory opened up expectations in an important social sector with which we want to share these reflections and debates, stating that we need to promote a double task, since combating the advance of the right goes hand in hand with building an alternative that represents a true revolutionary left, the only brake on the disaster that drives a model that has nothing to offer; everything must be turned around without hesitation. We are on this path as an organization.
