Sawt Falasteen - Chileans vote in elections dominated by crime, immigration

Chileans have eight hours to vote for president and members of parliament, with results expected within two hours of polls closing at 4:00 pm (1900 GMT).

Polls show the main left-wing candidate, Jeannette Jara, a 51-year-old communist running on behalf of a broad coalition, winning Sunday's first round of voting for president.

But far-right leader Jose Antonio Kast is tipped to emerge victorious in December's run-off.

A sharp increase in murders, kidnappings and extortion over the past decade has sown terror in Chile, one of Latin America's safest nations.

Many voters spoke of fears for their safety.

"Just a few steps from my house, a young boy was recently killed because he was wearing a gold chain; he was shot. And three years ago, on my street, a young girl was almost kidnapped," Rosario Isidora Herrera Munoz, who voted in Santiago with her six-month-old baby, told AFP.

"I hope that some day we'll go back to the way we were before," said Mario Faundez, an 87-year-old retired salesman.

"If we have to kill (criminals), so be it," he added.

The vote is seen as a litmus test for South America's left, which has been sent packing in Argentina and Bolivia, and faces a stiff challenge in Colombian and Brazilian elections next year.

"What's at stake here is whether the disconnection of Latin America from the United States and the free world continues to deepen," ultra-right candidate Johannes Kaiser said in response to an AFP question after he voted in Santiago.

- Torture, mutilation -

Outgoing center-left president Gabriel Boric, who is barred from seeking a second consecutive term, has made some strides in fighting crime.

Under his watch, the murder rate has fallen 10 percent since 2022 to 6 per 100,000 people, slightly above that of the United States.

But Chileans remain transfixed by the growing violence of criminals, which they blame on the arrival of gangs from Venezuela and other Latin American countries.

Kast, dubbed Chile's Trump, has vowed to end illegal migration by building walls, fences and trenches along Chile's desert border with Bolivia, the main crossing point for arrivals from poorer countries to the north.

The ultraconservative father of nine is on his third run for president. He was runner-up in 2021.

Former YouTube polemicist Kaiser, who has outflanked Kast on the right, was closing in on the poll leaders in the final days of campaigning.

The 49-year-old libertarian, who has been compared to Argentina's Javier Milei for his threat to radically downsize the state, campaigned as an outsider who shoots from the hip on crime, communism and family values.

Faced with a race to the right, conservative ex-minister Evelyn Matthei, 72, struggled to make her mark.

- Bellwether for the left -

Jara faces an uphill battle to overcome strong anti-communist sentiment and disappointment in the outgoing Boric administration.

Former student leader Boric defeated Kast in 2021 on a promise to establish a welfare state after mass demonstrations in 2019 over inequality.

But his presidency was fatally weakened after voters massively rejected a progressive new constitution months after his inauguration.

Jara is the only working-class candidate among the frontrunners.

She has campaigned as a moderate with a track record of social reforms, who will ensure that "every Chilean family can easily make it to the end of the month."

Kast would be the first far-right leader since the 1973-1990 military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet if elected.

The son of a German soldier in Hitler's Nazi army has defended Pinochet, who overthrew a democratically elected socialist president in 1973 and oversaw a regime that killed thousands of dissidents.

Voting is compulsory for the first time since 2012, adding nearly 5 million people to the electorate.

Besides choosing a new president, voters will also elect members to the Chamber of Deputies and half of the Senate.

O.Mousa--SF-PST