Kast Election Win: Mandatory Voting Impact – Chile 2023

This December 14, 2025, as we anticipated in the Bío Bío projections, José Antonio Kast He became the president with the most votes in the history of Chile. With 7.2 million votes – 58.16% of the total – he not only defeated Jeannette Jara by 16 points, but also put an end to the idea that no candidate who had voted “Yes” in the 1988 plebiscite could reach La Moneda.

But behind this overwhelming victory there is a question that divides analysts, journalists and politicians: Was compulsory voting the decisive factor?

Let’s start with the most basic. In the 2021 presidential election, when Kast lost against Gabriel Boric, 8.3 million Chileans voted. It was a voluntary vote: if you wanted to vote, you went; If not, you stayed home without consequences.

But in 2022 Chile changed the rules of the game. Mandatory voting was implemented and now, everyone over 18 years of age automatically registered on the electoral roll must go to vote or face a fine.

The result of this change was dramatic. In this 2025 election, 13.4 million people participated, that is, 5.1 million more than in 2021. Putting it in perspective, it is as if the entire voting population of a city the size of Santiago had been added to the polls at once.

As the newspaper La Tercera reports, “this is the first presidential election since 2013 with mandatory voting and the Republican José Antonio Kast was the one who managed to monopolize the largest number of the 5 million voters who previously did not go to the polls.”

But… who are those new 5 million?

Here comes the interesting thing. Those 5 million are not just any voters. These are people who for years preferred to stay home instead of voting.. And that says a lot about them.

Ricardo González, director of the Survey Laboratory at the Adolfo Ibáñez University, explained it this way on Radio Pauta: “The forced voter is one who did not vote when the vote was voluntary and who does so when they are obliged to do so. This group has no ideology, has no identification with the parties and for some reason is very anti-government.”

In simpler terms, they are people who do not consider themselves to be on the right or the left, do not feel represented by any traditional party and tend to be angry with the government in power.

Now, according to a study by the Center for Public Studies (CEP), this “new electorate” has very interesting characteristics:

• Lower educational level compared to those who voted voluntarily.
• More moderate political attitudes.
• Less interest in traditional politics.
• Greater concern for specific day-to-day problems.

When the “forgotten third” takes center stage

Juan Ignacio Brito, in his column for Nuevo Poder, describes it as “the forgotten third” from Chile. For decades, he points out, “the country revolved around the obsessions of an elite incapable of emerging from its self-absorption that became accustomed to speaking to the two-thirds it knew and ignoring the rest.”

According to data from the Citizen Panel-UDD cited by Brito, “7 out of 10 new voters leaned towards Kast”. This means that of those 5 million new voters, approximately 3.5 million would have voted for Kast, while only 1.5 million would have voted for Jara.

The concrete numbers: what happened in 2021 vs 2025?

To better understand the impact, let’s look at the numbers side by side:

Second round 2021 (voluntary vote)

• Total voters: 8.3 million.
• Votes for Boric (left): 4.6 million (55.87%).
• Votes for Kast (right): 3.6 million (44.13%).
• Difference: 1 million votes in favor of Boric.

Second round 2025 (mandatory vote)

• Total voters: 13.4 million
• Votes for Jara (left): 5.2 million (41.84%)
• Votes for Kast (right): 7.2 million (58.16%)
• Difference: 2 million votes in favor of Kast

Look at something crucial: Jara only added 600 thousand more votes than Boric in 2021, while Kast almost doubled his vote, adding 3.6 million new votes.

And without compulsory voting? The impossible contrast

Here comes the big question: Would Kast have won without compulsory voting?

As an analysis by the Citizen Panel-UDD points out, “without mandatory voting, neither the Rejection of 2022 nor the victory of Kast in 2025 would have existed as we know them”.

Brito is more direct: “If the election had taken place according to the pattern of the last 30 years, that is, if around seven million voters had voted instead of the more than twelve million who did so on Sunday, the result would have been close and would have continued to express the division of the Yes and No of 1988.”

Let’s think about it like this: if only the same people who voted in 2021 voted (that is, the most politicized and committed), Kast would probably have obtained between 4 and 4.5 million votes, and Jara another approximately 4 million. The result would have been much closer, perhaps with differences of only 2 or 3 percentage points.

The Parisi factor: the third vertex of the triangle

But mandatory voting did not act alone. There was another key element: Franco Parisi, the leader of the People’s Party who obtained 2.5 million votes (19.71%) in the first round.

When Parisi called for null or blank votes in the second round, many thought that those votes would be lost. It wasn’t like that.

According to an analysis by BioBioChile, 55% of Parisi voters ended up supporting Kast, while only 33.3% voted for Jara. The remaining 11.7% abstained.

Let’s do the simple math:

• 2.5 million votes for Parisi in the first round.
• 55% of 2.5 million = 1.375 million went to Kast.
• 33.3% of 2.5 million = 832 thousand went to Jara.
• Net difference in favor of Kast: more than 500 thousand votes.

The profile of the “Parisist” voter: why did you choose Kast?

This is a point that many analysts overlook. Why would someone who voted for an “anti-establishment” candidate like Parisi end up supporting a traditional right-wing politician like Kast?

Paulina Valenzuela, from Datavoz, explains it in Pauta: “I have always thought that it is not an ideological election. It is about a disaffected, disinterested electorate, focused on rapid changes.”

In simpler words: they did not vote for Kast because they believed in his conservative ideology, but because they wanted rapid change on specific issues such as security and the economy. And between Kast (who promised a “strong hand”) and Jara (who represented Boric’s continuity), they chose Kast.

It was not just the mandatory vote: the other 4 factors

It would not be accurate to say that Kast won only thanks to compulsory voting. There were other crucial elements:

1. The security crisis
The perception of insecurity skyrocketed. According to data cited by the Argentine newspaper Perfil, 87.7% of the Chilean population believes that crime has increased, although only 17.7% of homes suffered a robbery. This perception directly benefited Kast’s “order” speech.

2. The wear and tear of the Boric government
Jeannette Jara carried the burden of being seen as the continuity of a government with low approval. As Claudio Rodríguez, his partner, recognizes, the determining factor was “the cost of continuing a poorly evaluated government.”

3. The unit on the right
As Libertad y Desarrollo assures, in the first round the three right-wing candidates (Kast 23.9%, Kaiser 13.9% and Matthei 12.4%) together accounted for 50% of the votes. That coalition was consolidated in the second round, even though the candidates were not exactly friendly with each other during the campaign.

4. Migration
The immigration issue became a central concern, especially in the north of the country. Kast capitalized on this fear with proposals to apply a “strong hand.”

The voice of the experts: an impatient voter

What worries analysts most is not just that Kast won, but the type of electorate that brought him to power. As Valenzuela warns in Pauta, this electorate “is going to make payments faster.” They have no political loyalties. They will not wait years to see results.

Matías Quer, a researcher at the Signos Center at the University of the Andes, summarizes it in G5 Noticias: mandatory voting “forces candidates to take charge of the demands, needs and problems of all Chileans,” but also “forces them to become less polarized and probably have to connect with less politicized groups that have more specific needs.”

In other words, this electorate does not want big ideological debates. Wants concrete solutions to everyday problems.

The gap between expectations and reality

And here comes a disturbing fact that Paulina Valenzuela identifies: “The voting intention was 58-42, but confidence in the attributes of José Antonio Kast is 50%.”

Let’s explain this: 58% voted for Kast, but only 50% trust that he can really solve the problems. That is, there are 8% who voted for him without really believing in his ability. They voted against Jara more than for Kast.

This places immediate pressure on the next government. As the founder of Datavoz warns, the evaluation will be focused “not on the greatness of a measure, but on the ability to achieve it.”

5 final keys to understand victory

In an opinion column, researcher Jorge Ramírez from Libertad y Desarrollo, identifies five key elements to understand the result:

1. The magnitude
With 58.16%, Kast surpassed Piñera’s 54.6% in 2017, marking “the largest electoral support for a right-wing leader in Republican history.”

2. The nulls and whites
Despite Parisi’s call, they only reached 7.5% (less than 1 million votes), much less than anticipated. Consistent with Valenzuela’s argument, this would show that the protest vote was lower than expected.

3. The sinking of Jara
With 41.84%, Jara was below the 45.4% that Guillier obtained in 2017, “the worst figure for a candidate from the left or center-left in a runoff since the return to democracy.”

4. The end of a cycle
The result marks the end of the Yes/No axis to the Pinochet regime that has defined Chilean politics since 1988. A third of current voters were born after that plebiscite.

5. The new political division

If the result is close to the 60/40 of the 2022 constitutional plebiscite, this axis (of order versus change) could be consolidated as “the new sociopolitical fissure of our time.”

The historical perspective: it is not an isolated case

To better understand the phenomenon, it is worth looking at the history of compulsory voting in Chile. As the research outlet CIPER explains, during the voluntary vote (2012-2021) participation fell dramatically:

• 2012 (municipal elections): 43%
• 2013 (presidential second round): 42%
• 2017 (presidential second round): 49%
• 2021 (presidential second round): 55.7%

With mandatory voting, implemented from 2022, participation skyrocketed (in reality, there was no other choice):

• 2022 (constitutional plebiscite): 85.9%
• 2024 (municipal elections): 85%
• 2025 (first round presidential): 85.3%
• 2025 (presidential second round): 85%

The pattern is clear: mandatory voting stably incorporated that “forgotten third” that Brito mentioned.

The risk of impossible promises

But Patricio Fernández, from Espacio Público, issues a warning in the newspaper El País: “José Antonio Kast’s promises are evidently excessive. Neither crime nor migration can be solved by shouting loudly. They are bound to disappoint quickly”.

And he adds something crucial: “One of the mistakes of Gabriel Boric and the Frente Amplio during the first part of his government was to inhabit the illusion that the support received in the second round coincided to the extent with his political project.” Kast could make the same mistake: interpret his 58% as an ideological mandate when in reality it was a pragmatic and anti-government vote.

Conclusion: A victory for many parents (but one more important)

So, did Kast win thanks to mandatory voting? Yes, definitely. Without those 5 million new voters, especially without the 3.5 million who voted for him, the victory would have been impossible or at least much closer.

But it would also be simplistic to stop at just that. Compulsory voting was the necessary condition, but not the only one. Also crucial were:

• The security crisis and citizen fear.
• The wear and tear of the Boric government and the rejection of continuity.
• The capture of 55% of Parisi’s vote (1.4 million votes).
• The traditional right-wing unit behind Kast.
• A fragmented and defensive left.

As BBC Mundo summarizes, Chile voted for a change, but not necessarily because of Kast’s ideological project. He voted against the feeling of disorder, against a government that, despite its promises, failed to connect with everyday concerns.

What has become absolutely clear is that this new electorate – disaffected, apolitical and impatient – ​​will be implacable with the next government. As Valenzuela warns, “they are going to collect faster.” They have no loyalties. They have no patience. And, above all, They will not forget that they were forced to vote.

On March 11, 2026, when Kast takes office, we will know if that forced voter found in him the answer he was looking for. Or if, as happened with Boric, the political thermometer will quickly change color when promises crash into reality.

Because there is something that these 5 million new voters made very clear: they are willing to participate, yes, but they are also willing to punish.

And in politics, as in life, second chances do not always exist.

This note was made by a human journalistwith assistance from Claude, Anthropic’s artificial intelligence.