The elections pit the governing leftist coalition against a conservative challenger, and will also redefine the country’s legislature.

Chileans are voting to pick a new president and Congress as more than 15 million registered voters will decide whether the country stays on its current centre-left course or, like its neighbour Argentina, makes a sharp turn to the right.

Polls opened at 8am (11:00 GMT) on Sunday and are expected to close at 6pm (21:00 GMT) as one of the Latin American country’s most divisive elections in recent times got under way.

A change from the previous elections is mandatory voting for registered voters.

The starkly divided frontrunners are Jeannette Jara, the 51-year-old governing coalition candidate from the Communist Party, and Jose Antonio Kast, 59, of the Republican Party who promises “drastic measures” to fight rising gang violence and deport undocumented immigrants.

Polls suggest that none of the eight candidates on the ballot will secure the majority of votes needed to avoid a run-off on December 14.

Left-wing President Gabriel Boric is constitutionally barred from seeking a second consecutive term.

Security high on agenda

The election campaign was dominated by rising crime and immigration, leading to calls for an “iron fist” and United States President Donald Trump-style threats of mass deportations.

A sharp increase in murders, kidnappings and extortion over the past decade has awakened large security concerns in one of Latin America’s safest nations, a far cry from the wave of left-wing optimism and hopes of drafting a new constitution that brought Boric to power.

Boric has made some strides in fighting crime. Under his watch, the homicide rate has fallen 10 percent since 2022 to six per 100,000 people, slightly above that of the US.

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, called “Chile’s Trump”, has promised to end undocumented immigration by building walls, fences and trenches along Chile’s desert border with Bolivia, the main crossing point for arrivals from poorer countries.

Before the elections, he issued 337,000 undocumented immigrants with an ultimatum to sell up and self-deport or be thrown out and lose everything if he wins power.

The previous elections saw an abstention rate of 53 percent in the first-round voting, and the large amount of apathetic or undecided residents set to cast ballots this time adds a wild card to the race.

Most of Congress is up for grabs with the entirety of the 155-member Chamber of Deputies and 23 of the country’s 50 Senate seats up for grabs.

The governing leftist coalition currently has a minority in both chambers. If the right wing wins majorities in both, it could set the stage for Congress and the presidency to be controlled by the right for the first time since the end of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship in 1990.