Chileans are divided in a presidential runoff tilted toward the far right

“We need to go back in time to when Chile meant peace and quiet, when there weren't so many Venezuelans and Colombians in the streets, when you didn't have to look over your shoulder every second,” said 70-year-old vegetable vendor Ernesto Romero, shucking corn in Chile’s capital of Santiago.

A deeply polarized electorate

Ask the same question to other Chileans and they'll recount an opposite reality:

A shorter workweek, higher minimum wage and more generous pension system made one of Latin America's most unequal countries more livable, they say. The homicide rate declined in the last two years, official figures show. A defiant foreign policy — outspoken against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's repression, U.S. President Donald Trump's crackdown on immigrants and Israel's actions toward Palestinians — made Chile a regional champion of human rights.

These are the voters who hope, against heavy odds, to elect their country's most left-wing president since its return to democracy in 1990.

Jeannette Jara, 51, they argue, can save Chile from the wave of far-right populism that has upended politics across the world. Jara's rival is their worst fear: The son of a Nazi party member with a fondness for Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s brutal dictatorship.

“We need to go forward," said Lucía Poblete, a 32-year-old engineer at Jara’s rally late Wednesday. “Kast will erase all the progress we’ve made for women, for labor rights, for civil freedoms.”

The chasm between Chilean perceptions of the status quo underscores not only the depth of the nation's divisions but also the stakes of Sunday's showdown, which Kast is expected to win after 70% of voters backed right-leaning parties in the first round.

Kast vows to make Chile safe again

Today, Kast is hoping the third time’s the charm, and his presidential run has so far been a much more effective endeavor than the previous two. That's largely thanks to fears of organized crime and immigration.

“Jara seems more grounded, more sensible. But it's not the time for that. It's time for drastic measures, for shows of force,” said Eduardo Marillana, 48, a former Jara supporter who jumped ship for Kast after his truck was stolen a few weeks ago. “Whether we like it or not, we need the far right now.”

In 2021, the Catholic father of nine lost the runoff election to current President Gabriel Boric, a tattooed ex-student protest leader who rattled investors with his promises to “bury neoliberalism” but galvanized millions of ordinary Chileans sick of fiscal austerity and angry about social inequality.

Kast's family ties to the Nazi party sparked an uproar at the time — as did his apparent nostalgia for Gen. Pinochet (who he said “would vote for me if he were alive”) and his fierce opposition to same-sex marriage and abortion without exception.

This time, Kast has dodged questions about his social views, pivoting to the more politically palatable issues of insecurity and mass migration that have ginned up voter anxiety and boosted the right from Washington to Paris.

An ideological alliance forms in Latin America

Four years ago, Boric came to power as unapologetically left-wing leaders surged to power from Colombia and Peru to Mexico and Brazil on promises of radical social change. But the leaders' honeymoon was short as they struggled against hostile legislatures to realize high ambitions.

Now, Kast emerges emboldened as Trump's allies are on the ascent from Bolivia to Argentina.

Taking a page from Trump's playbook, Kast vows mass deportations of the estimated 337,000 migrants in Chile without legal status — mostly Venezuelans who arrived from their crisis-stricken country in the last seven years.

Studying the crime-fighting tactics of El Salvador’s popular autocratic president, Nayib Bukele, Kast proposes boosting the power of police and expanding maximum-security prison capacity.

Borrowing from Argentina's radical libertarian President Javier Milei, Kast aims to slash red tape, shrink the public payroll and cut spending by $6 billion within just 18 months. Critics say such austerity is unrealistic without reducing social benefits — which Kast promises not to touch — and unnecessary to fix budget strains that pale beside Argentina’s economic shambles.

His economic team Thursday acknowledged to The Associated Press that it might be “preferable to allow for an adjustment over a longer period.” But it insisted the cuts were crucial to “restore balance to public finances."

Jara faces tough odds

On the face of it, Jara has a lot going for her. She engineered Boric’s most significant welfare measures as his minister of labor. Her humble origins selling hot dogs and toilet paper to get through school makes for an up-from-nothing story rarely found in Chile's elite circles of power. She has a strong record of negotiating with rivals to get things done.

But experts say it'll take a miracle for her to pry a victory from Kast.

“There are just too many things stacked against her,” said Robert Funk, associate professor of political science at the University of Chile.

The most glaring: Being a communist. Although her proposals to boost foreign investment and promote fiscal restraint hardly smack of stereotypical communism, analysts say her longtime party membership undercuts efforts to woo moderate voters.

“Just the name ‘Communist Party scares people,” said Lucía Dammert, a sociologist and Boric’s first chief of staff. “The word is used in the region to diminish people.”

Then there's the challenge of representing a government with a 30% approval rating in a country where citizens have voted out incumbent leaders at every election since 2005. Add to that the difficulty of appearing tough on crime next to Kast.

"This campaign is among the most difficult I’ve ever run, by far,” Ricardo Solari, Jara’s campaign strategist and a prominent ex-minister, told the AP.

What keeps Jara in the game, he insisted, is her appeal as a bulwark against the sort of right-wing radicalism that has eroded the rule of law elsewhere.

“The right exaggerates insecurity to convince people that the only possible response is extreme force,” Solari said. “We've seen in Latin America that when that happens, ultimately what gets imprisoned is democracy itself.”