With a tough-on-crime and anti-immigration discourse, the Chilean far-right candidate, José Antonio Kast, defeated his rival, Jeannette Jara, by a wide margin in the presidential elections.

In Sunday’s polls, Kast obtained 58.16 percent of the votes, while the standard-bearer of the left, progressivism and social democracy achieved 41.84, when almost 100 percent of the polling stations had been counted.

Kast, who made the issue of security the axis of his campaign, said in his first address to the nation that he will work to recover «tranquillity and order» and reiterated his threats against undocumented migrants.

Do not ask us, irregular migrants, to spend resources on you. Those who do not comply with the law have to leave, he stated.

Although the eight left and centre parties that supported Jara will have to conduct a deep study on the causes of this resounding defeat, several experts are trying to explain the rise of the far-right in the country.

For political analyst Omar Cid, the result is largely due to Jara’s campaign team failing to separate her candidacy from the legacy of the current administration, with all the mistakes it made and its political defeats, such as the first constitutional convention.

Here there is a vote punishing the government, said the also journalist from Crónica Digital in statements to Prensa Latina, after recalling that Jara was Minister of Labour in Gabriel Boric’s cabinet.

On the other hand, he warned, the issue of security and migration marked most of the debates, an agenda that openly favoured Kast, and other important topics like education, housing, health, poverty, inequality, territorial and environmental issues were sidelined.

For University of Chile professor Dino Pancani, this result, predicted by the polls, can be attributed to the performance of a government that in its four years assumed a language more linked to the right and did not impose its own agenda.

Furthermore, the candidate’s campaign was not capable of proposing changes and abandoned important topics for the left, such as social justice.

Pancani recalled that the former Concertación of Parties for Democracy has not managed to have a competitive candidacy after Michelle Bachelet.

«The most painful thing is that popular sectors opted to believe in those who are against their interests,» he warned.

Kast’s victory also fits within a context of the rise of the far-right not only in Latin America, but worldwide.

In fact, one of the first to congratulate him was the President of Argentina, Javier Milei, hailing the crushing victory of whom he described as his friend and declared that this is «one more step for our region in defence of life, liberty and private property.»

The President of Paraguay, Santiago Peña, also congratulated Kast and said he hopes they will work together to «further strengthen the friendship» between their countries; while the president of Vox, Santiago Abascal, considered him a «dear friend and ally.»

From Washington, Secretary of State Marco Rubio congratulated the president-elect and stated that «under his leadership, we are confident Chile will advance shared priorities, like strengthening public security, ending illegal immigration, and revitalising our trade relationship.»

Before the election, the US ambassador in Santiago, Brandon Judd, had expressed his concern about a potential Chilean government not aligned with its interests, which was described here as an act of interference in the electoral process.

Addressing the topic of the rise of the far-right in Chile, University of Santiago professor and Doctor in American Studies, Eduardo Estenssoro, considered that it obeys several factors.

But perhaps the most important, he said, is that the world defined as progressive lowered the fight for Latin Americanism, abandoned the traditional banners of the left and forgot the defence of the rights of the poor.

Kast, belonging to the Republican Party, counted on the support of the also extremist National Libertarian Party, close to the ideas of Milei, and of the traditional right.

The president-elect will assume his functions on the upcoming 11th of March.