Jeannette Jara, the presidential candidate for the Unity for Chile party, casts her vote at the Liceo Poeta Garcia Lorca in Santiago’s Conchali district. (EPA Images pic)
SANTIAGO: Governing leftist coalition and Communist Party candidate Jeannette Jara is leading Chile’s presidential race, an early count from electoral service Servel showed on Sunday, with 1.6% of ballots tallied.
Jara is leading with 31.3% of the votes, trailed by far-right candidate Jose Antonio Kast, who is making his third bid for the presidency, with 23.3% of the votes.
Unless a candidate wins more than 50% of the vote, the top two candidates will proceed to a runoff on Dec 14.
Jara now faces an uphill battle as pollsters favour a right-wing victory in December as conservative forces are expected to coalesce around Kast.
Eight candidates appeared on Sunday’s ballot, but would have needed to get 50% plus one vote to win the election outright.
In a shift from the previous election, voting was mandatory for Chile’s 15.7 million registered voters.
