Santiago, Nov 17 (AP) Chile is headed to a tense presidential runoff after a first-round vote Sunday set up a showdown between a member of the Communist Party and an ultraconservative veteran politician, sharply polarizing the country between the political left and right.

Jeannette Jara, 51, the communist former labour minister and candidate of Chile's center-left governing coalition, claimed more than 26 per cent of valid ballots with more than 80 per cent of the vote counted, failing to pass the 50 per cent threshold to secure victory in the first round.

“This is a great country,” she said from her campaign headquarters in Santiago, Chile's capital. “I want to give everyone who voted for me a warm hug.” José Antonio Kast, 59, a hard-right former lawmaker and devout Catholic opposed to same-sex marriage and abortion, captured more than 24 per cent of the vote, underscoring the resilience of his law-and-order platform as a surge in organised crime rattles one of Latin America's safest nations and foments anti-migrant sentiment among Chileans.

Kast had a tougher message for the country after learning he would advance to the runoff.

“What we need to avoid is the continuation of a very bad government,” he said, thanking Evelyn Matthei, Chile's center-right establishment candidate who landed in a disappointing fifth place, for throwing her support behind him.

“We may have had our differences … but those differences are nothing compared to what we see before us," he said.

Crime, immigration boost the right An admirer of US President Donald Trump and Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro, Kast has vowed to deport tens of thousands of undocumented migrants and construct hundreds of kilometers of ditches, barriers and walls along Chile's northern border with Bolivia to prevent people from crossing, particularly from crisis-stricken Venezuela.

“We want change, and that change today is about security,” José Hernández, the 60-year-old owner of an agricultural company said after casting his ballot for Kast. “This stage of my life should be about enjoyment. But I'm home by 9 pm because of fear.” Although voters gave Jara an edge on Sunday, Kast will benefit in the second round from a large share of votes that went to three eliminated right-wing challengers who campaigned aggressively on the need to tackle illegal immigration.

Center-right candidate Franco Parisi, an economist with a large social media following, surprised pundits by finishing third. Some observers said that could reflect how Chile's first-ever presidential election with mandatory voting and automatic registration added millions of apathetic citizens to the voting rolls.

Johannes Kaiser, a former YouTube provocateur elected as a radical libertarian lawmaker in 2021, came in fourth.

Chile's constitution does not allow reelection to consecutive terms, so left-wing President Gabriel Boric, whose presidency ends in March, is not standing.

Like her opponents, Jara has called insecurity a top priority, promoting plans to deport foreigners convicted of drug trafficking, boost security along Chile's borders and tackle money laundering.

“On the question of more jails, more punishments, more imprisonment, closing borders, restricting migrants, there is no debate anymore between the right and left,” said Lucía Dammert, a political scientist and Boric's first chief of staff.

“But it's an issue that always enhances the right, everywhere in Latin America.” Winning over wary voters The race now goes to a second round on December 14 and analysts believe the starkly opposed Jara and Kast will tack to the middle ground in order to broaden their appeal.

“We will definitely see Jara and Kast after today being even more moderate, talking about things that voters care about and trying to compete for the center,” said Rodolfo Disi, a political scientist at Chile's Adolfo Ibáñez University.

Over the next month, Jara faces the challenge of winning over voters concerned about her lifelong membership in Chile's Communist party, which supports authoritarian governments in Cuba and Venezuela. Jara came under fire early on in her campaign for referring to Cuba as a democracy, walking the comment back months later.

“We liked her at first, but that moment was when our opinion shifted, it seemed like a really closed-minded view,” Camila Roure, 29, said outside a polling station where she voted for Matthei, the daughter of a general who served in Augusto Pinochet's 1973-1990 military dictatorship. “Unfortunately my two main options say troubling things about dictators.” But as a woman, Roure said, she wouldn't vote for Kast – given his history of opposition to divorce and abortion, even in cases of rape.

Although Kast has more recently sought to deflect attention from what he calls traditional family values and his German-born father's Nazi past – which mobilized progressive voters against him during his last two failed presidential bids – he has made clear his views remain the same.

“A Kast government wouldn't just be a political shift, it would be a huge step backward,” said Macarena Breke, 27, an English teacher voting for Jara in downtown Santiago.

Jara promises a social safety net President Boric, the young, tattooed ex-student protest leader who came to power in 2021 vowing to “bury neoliberalism” on the heels of mass unrest over inequality, has faced criticism from allies and rivals alike that his government failed to fulfill its sweeping promises of social change.

Economic discontent is simmering in one of Latin America's most prosperous nations, with growth sluggish and unemployment up over 8.5 per cent. The country retains its dictatorship-era constitution after voters rejected a government-backed charter that would have transformed Chile into one of the world's most progressive societies.

But Boric's government has several landmark welfare measures to show for itself — many of them thanks to Jara.

As labor minister, she raised the minimum wage, boosted pensions and shortened the workweek to 40 from 45 hours.

“The right is trying to sell this idea that the country is collapsing. But I don't see that,” said Loreta Sleir, a 27-year-old who voted for Jara.

To address Chile's cost-of-living crisis — which in 2019 helped fuel the country's most significant social upheaval since the 1990 fall of Pinochet's dictatorship — Jara proposes a “living” monthly income of around $800 through state subsidies and minimum wage hikes. She promises to invest in big infrastructure projects and new housing.

Kast promises to shrink the state Kast proposes quite the opposite.

Taking a page from the playbook of President Javier Milei in neighboring Argentina, he vows to shrink the public payroll, eliminate government ministries, slash corporate taxes and get rid of regulations in a bid to revive the stagnant economy – which has slowed the pace of job creation as immigrants flood the labor market.

He says he'll make a staggering USD 6 billion in spending cuts over 18 months — a bid which, even if far-fetched, appeals to voters disconcerted by repeated fiscal deficits.

“The money disappears, the left spends it I don't know what, human rights, and I can barely afford rent,” said Jorge Ruiz, 48, a cab driver who voted for Kast.

Chile's 2 per cent deficit this year pales in comparison to the economic woes elsewhere in the region — like in Argentina, where President Trump recently helped halt a currency crisis.

But the repeated deficits are rare for a country long hailed as a regional success story for extreme laissez-faire economics, a model established by Pinochet and sustained for decades after his dictatorship's downfall. (AP) OZ OZ