José Antonio Kast won Chile's presidential runoff with 58.1 percent of the vote against Jeannette Jara in an election held under compulsory voting for the first time that also saw a rise in blank and null ballots.Kast, 59, ran on a hardline platform of tougher crime measures, stricter immigration controls and a pledge to cut about $6 billion from the budget within 18 months while saying he would not trim social benefits, and his campaign drew comparisons to Donald Trump and Javier Milei and evoked nostalgia for the Pinochet era.Reactions were sharply polarized, with some regional leaders praising the transparency of the count and others, including Gustavo Petro, strongly condemning the result, and analysts such as Marco Moreno, Henrik Brandão Jönsson and Cristobal Rovira Kaltwasser warned Kast faces a fragile economy, a polarized society and likely pushback from Congress and the courts; Kast will take office on March 11, 2026.