Paul Moss

They were cheering and chanting when that result came through.

Some of them told me that they had been waiting for this moment for years, given his previous attempts to run for president.

It is now very clear that he is going to be inaugurated as the next president on the 11th of March next year.

He has set that as a deadline in his rallies throughout this election campaign for irregular migrants to leave the country if they ever want the chance to get back in again.

He has made it very clear that his top priority now that he has been elected president is to crack down on what he sees as a rise in irregular migration, but also on crime and general security issues in the country, too.

It's only four years since Chile voted for the previous president, Gabriel Boric, and he campaigned on a pretty left-wing ticket, high taxes for the rich, focus on environmental issues.

Now the country's voted for someone described as far-right.

I mean, what has changed?

I think it's a really interesting question and there are different factors behind this.

Some see the so-called sort of fall in Boric's popularity as being due to some early mistakes.

He tried, for example, to introduce a new constitution.

It was rejected by voters in 2022.

Some of the public perceived the new constitution as too radical and that damaged, I think, some of the government's sort of political capital as well.

Then there was the emergence of this increasing concern about security issues in the country.

Chile is still one of the safest and more stable countries in the region, but there has been a growing perception of crime, particularly organized crime, growing.

Immigration has risen in the country since 2017, and certainly right-wing candidates like José Antonio Kast capitalized on that.

They made this link.

blaming immigration for rising crime, even though some studies suggest that actually foreigners in Chile, on average, commit fewer crimes than Chileans.

But certainly this became an issue that really, I think, a lot of voters were very incensed by, really, going into this campaign.

Gabriel Boric did introduce some sweeping new measures, particularly welfare measures.