Who’s Afraid of Jeannette Jara?

Earlier this summer, Chile’s governing coalition selected its candidate to run as President Gabriel Boric’s replacement in elections later this year. Meet Jeannette Jara Román. She successfully negotiated the most emblematic reforms of the Boric administration. She is credited with the kind of style and charisma that won the former president Michelle Bachelet two terms. She has also been a Communist since age 14.

In March, before those primaries, a meme went viral. The setting: a municipal gym in the Peñalolén district of Santiago. The occasion: the enactment of the largest pension reform in recent decades, which will improve conditions for current and future retirees. The entertainment: a band of older musicians performing “Pedacito de Mi Vida,” a Cuban guaracha popularized in Chile in a cumbia version. Most important about the meme, though, is who is seen dancing: it is Jara, 51, then the labor minister, who had led negotiations with the business community and the right wing to push through the pension reform. She is wearing black pants, a black blouse, and an orange blazer, and she appears alongside Congressman Eric Aedo, a Christian Democrat who helped secure votes for the measure in parliament. Politics does not offer many moments to celebrate; here is one, immortalized in cumbia steps.

Will Jara dance again soon? The next general election, for both the presidency and Congress, will be held on Sunday, November 16. If no presidential candidate wins 50% of the vote, the two leading contenders will face each other in a runoff in December. Jara is up against several candidates from the right—which, though divided, currently is favored in opinion polls. But shifts in the political preferences of Chileans in recent years cast doubt on all forecasts: many voters are likely to remain undecided until the last few weeks of the campaign. And as the sociologist Eugenio Tironi said recently of Zohran Mamdani, the US Democratic candidate to be New York City’s next mayor, “if a Muslim can be the mayor of the biggest city in the world, and the most powerful one, then why couldn’t a communist be the president of this small republic of Chile?”

Jara, the eldest of five children, is the daughter of an industrial mechanic and a housewife. She grew up in the working-class neighborhood of Conchalí in northern Santiago. She received her education in public schools. And at just 14—during the Pinochet dictatorship, not so long before the fall of the Berlin Wall—she joined the Communist Youth. She was an activist at the University of Santiago and became the president of the students’ federation. After graduating with a degree in public administration, she began her career in the Internal Revenue Service; later she joined the Civil Servants’ Association. (Meanwhile, she obtained a law degree and a master’s degree in management and public policy.) She served in the Ministry of Social Development and Family and the Ministry of Labor and Social Security before being appointed undersecretary of labor during Bachelet’s second term—a key experience that led Boric to make her labor minister in 2022.

Jara’s journey from a humble family to minister of state and her reputation for negotiating far-reaching reforms with the business community allow her to successfully project a dual narrative about her character. On the one hand, in a country where her achievements may seem like an anomaly, her trajectory tells a model story about hard work and meritocracy; on the other, her capacity for dialogue and management have enabled her to carry out her tasks in the service of the majority. She seems to bridge the gap between the common people and the ruling elite.

Still, Jara is heading into an election that is simultaneously polarized on content and depoliticized in terms of identification: only a bit more than 3% of the population formally belongs to a political party and 63% expresses no general affinity for any (and 3% doesn’t know what it thinks). Against this backdrop, one question is how her association with Communism, which has a loaded legacy in Chile, will play out.

What does it even mean to be a member of Chile’s Communist Party today? Or a Communist? To answer these questions, let us briefly go back in time.

On December 21, 1907, amid negotiations between saltpeter workers and their employers in the coastal city of Iquique, one of the most infamous slaughters in Chilean history took place: the Santa María School massacre, in which the army killed an estimated 2,000 workers and their relatives. Five years later, a group of former leaders of the Democratic Party, led by Luis Emilio Recabarren, founded the Social Workers’ Party, and in 1922 that became the Communist Party of Chile. Inspired by the workers’ struggle, the Communists joined the Popular Front, an alliance with radicals, Socialists, and democrats that served as a platform for the government of Pedro Aguirre Cerda in 1938. They were also part of the government of Gabriel González Videla—until he enacted a law banning them.

After they spent a decade in hiding, a reform driven by a new political context legalized the Communist Party again, allowing it to take part in the Popular Action Front, the predecessor of Popular Unity, which brought Salvador Allende to the presidency in 1970. At that time, two of the movement’s best-known militants were the folk singer Víctor Jara (no relation to Jeannette) and the poet and Nobel Prize laureate Pablo Neruda.

In 1973, following the military coup organized and supported by the right wing, the armed forces, and the CIA, thousands of members of Popular Unity were persecuted, imprisoned, tortured, exiled, murdered, or disappeared. During the 17 years of dictatorship that followed, more than 500 of the people killed were members of the Communist Party. It was in this context of horror and persecution that the party created a paramilitary wing in 1983 to destabilize the regime, the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FPMR). But in 1987, after a failed assassination attempt against Pinochet, the Communist Party—under leaders like Luis Corvalán, Guillermo Teillier, and Gladys Marín—shifted political strategy: banking on a more pacific and democratic approach, it broke with the FPMR.

In 1989, after the plebiscite that put an end to the dictatorship, the Communists supported Patricio Aylwin against Pinochet’s candidate, Hernán Büchi; Aylwin won, but they did not join his administration. Nor did they participate in any of the next three governments of the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia (Coalition of Parties for Democracy), partly because they didn’t agree with the proposed terms of the political transition.

Fast forward to 2013—following massive student protests led by, among others, Camila Vallejo, a leading figure of the Communist Youth—when the Communist Party and the Concertación parties formed the Nueva Mayoría (New Majority) coalition, which brought Bachelet back to the presidency. By 2021, the Communists were part of the Apruebo Dignidad (I Approve Dignity) alliance that enabled Boric’s election, and since then they have been a key part of his government.

Today, Chilean Communism displays two clear tendencies. One is anchored in doctrine and is nostalgic for the Bolivarian process that characterized Latin America’s first progressive wave early this century. The other, without renouncing the movement’s roots and the goal of social justice, is clearly more self-critical and pragmatic, and seeks to build trust by securing concrete achievements for working families. Some analysts have compared that strand to Eurocommunism, the 1970s movement that sought to distance Communism in Western Europe from the Soviet Union and opt for a democratic path to Socialism in coexistence with a plurality of political parties. Tironi calls the Communist Party of Chile’s own evolution “Jaracomunismo.”

In a recent interview with CNN Chile, Jara said of the situation in Venezuela, “I have a very critical opinion of Maduro,” adding that it would be “very difficult” or even “unfeasible” to resume diplomatic relations. Asked about (false) reports claiming she owned properties in Caracas, she replied mischievously, “I don’t even know Venezuela, and at this point I doubt that I would be welcome there.”

Of Chile, Jara has argued that it “needs tranquility, growth, security, and, of course, attention to some social issues such as public health, which is a pressure cooker, and I intend to take charge. Chile needs higher levels of efficiency in public management and a significant modernization of the state apparatus to better serve its citizens.”

She has spoken out against right-wing candidates’ proposed tax cuts for the wealthiest and has called for social cohesion and for strengthening social programs. Addressing a business association this summer, she said, “I’m sure I won’t win any votes in this forum, but I prefer to tell the truth.”

Jara’s down-to-earth presentation, her pragmatism, and her charisma remind many Chileans of Bachelet’s style. Of course, some draw the comparison to be pejorative and to suggest that Jara rallies support only with charm. The sociologist Pierina Ferretti disagrees: Jara is not “a heart without a head,” and Chile has known other moments when people organized around leaders who, in addition to being charismatic, had strong negotiation skills and led the country toward greater well-being. Heart and head, Ferretti argues.

“Today, I am not the Communist Party candidate; I am the candidate of the country’s center-left coalition,” Jara said soon after her nomination. She knows that the specter of Communism continues to haunt Chile. Sectors of the business community and of the right mention Jara’s party affiliation whenever they can. But as Carlos Peña, an influential liberal thinker and the rector of Diego Portales University, puts it: “one can be opposed to the ideas of the Communist Party and still be willing, as I am, to debate with them. What I am not willing to do is distort the facts and join an absurd, foolish anti-communist campaign.”

Peña added, referring to the party when it was part of government coalitions: “if one looks back with intellectual honesty and asks oneself whether on some of those occasions it had an antidemocratic, disruptive attitude, the truth is that it did not.”

Although Jara’s candidacy represents continuity with the Boric administration, in some respects it also is something new.

In July 2021, Boric, a congressman at the time, competed in the primaries for the Apruebo Dignidad alliance against Daniel Jadue, then the mayor of Recoleta, a lower-middle-class district of Santiago. The presidential election, as well as the legislative election, later that year was essentially a contest between this alliance (comprising mainly the Broad Front and the Communist Party) and the Concertación bloc of parties (namely the Christian Democratic Party, the Radical Social Democratic Party, the Liberal Party, the Party for Democracy, and the Socialist Party). Efforts to achieve unity between these two blocs began during the second round of the last presidential election. After Boric’s victory, his administration has increasingly integrated members of the Concertación parties.

Political dialogue is much more mature today than it was in 2021. Apruebo Dignidad and the Concertación parties even ran jointly in local elections in 2024. On Sunday, June 29, when the ruling coalition Unidad por Chile held its presidential primaries, some 1.42 million ballots were cast. Jara won more than 60% of the vote. She beat Carolina Tohá, the previous interior minister, from the center left; Gonzalo Winter, a member of Boric’s party, the Broad Front; and Jaime Mulet, a member of the Regionalist Green Social Federation. And this year something historic, once impossible, occurred: Jara gained the support of the Christian Democratic Party, which has historically occupied a progressive-center position. Reactions were swift. The American Christian Democratic Association suspended its Chilean member for backing Jara’s candidacy, considering the move a “serious breach of our organization’s principles.” Yet the Christian Democratic Party of Uruguay, affiliated with the Broad Front since 1971, celebrated the decision, calling support for Jara “an act of political responsibility and a call for cooperation for an inclusive and democratic future.”

To understand the prospects of such a future, one needs a bit more recent context. Boric won the December 2021 elections in the midst of a constitutional revision process designed to address demands expressed during the social unrest of October 2019. In a plebiscite six months after he took office, 62% of voters rejected the proposal for a new constitution, which had been drafted by a mostly progressive group that had been elected. A second constitutional revision process was then launched, though this time the elected drafters were mostly conservatives. This second text also was rejected in late 2023, by 56% of voters.

This is an ambivalent, and seemingly contradictory, political reality. Despite it, however, and even though Boric’s camp has only a clear minority in both chambers of parliament, his administration has managed to implement several important reforms—a royalty on mining, an effective system for child-support payments, free universal public healthcare, a new ministry of public security. Undoubtedly, some of the most emblematic measures were led by Jara and she negotiated them with business associations and trade unions: a reduction in the working week from 45 to 40 hours; the largest real increase in the minimum wage of the last three decades; and a necessary pension reform that had been under discussion for more than 10 years.

Although hopes and expectations following the 2019 social uprising have not yet been met, the achievements of the last four years cannot be considered minor, especially given both the balance of power in Chile and the wave of neoconservative and far-right movements around the world. Boric’s public-approval ratings as president have been lower than expected, but they have been steady, ranging between 30% and 35%. This is not nothing.

Remember that since 2006 every government succession in Chile has essentially meant handing over power to the opposite political camp. That year, Ricardo Lagos gave the reins to Bachelet. Then came Sebastián Piñera, then Bachelet again, then again Piñera, and then Boric. The next presidential election will be the first in Chile’s history with automatic registration and compulsory voting: Of nearly 15.8 million registered voters, some 5 million will be first-timers. These voters tend to come from the middle and lower classes, who are dissatisfied, distrustful, and more politically unpredictable. The number of foreigners who can cast ballots has doubled over the last five years, to 886,190 people. Since many come from Venezuela, fleeing Nicolás Maduro’s socialist party, their participation could favor the Chilean right.

The stakes are high. An expanded pro-government coalition would likely propose policies in keeping with those of the Boric administration but with a different leadership style than his: Jara is more mature and more experienced, she comes from a different social background, and she has her own touch. Meanwhile, the right wing has been building itself up precisely by opposing this government—and by trying to rewrite history about the unrest of October 2019, calling it a “criminal uprising” and saying its supporters suffered from “Octubrismo.”

The candidates facing Jara come from different wings of the right.

In pole position at the moment is the Republican Party contender José Antonio Kast, running in his fourth presidential election. A regular participant of the Conservative Political Action Conference, he is close to hard-right leaders around the world—Jair Bolsonaro, Santiago Abascal, Giorgia Meloni, Viktor Orbán. A former deputy of the conservative Independent Democratic Union (UDI) for 16 years, he presents himself as an alternative mainly focused on security and immigration issues.

The candidate of the traditional right-wing coalition Chile Vamos (Chile, Let’s Go), Evelyn Matthei, who led virtually all the polls until recently, is struggling to find the right tone for her campaign. She is caught between a core electorate that is increasingly moving toward the extreme right and the need to attract more moderate votes.

The National Libertarian Party candidate Johannes Kaiser, a congressman, seems to have been nothing more than a shooting star. He made something of a splash early this year but then didn’t take off and is now polling below 10 percent. His transition from eccentric, radical YouTuber—somewhat in the style of the firebrand Argentine president, Javier Milei—does not seem to move majorities in Chile.

Finally, there is the economist Franco Parisi, of the People’s Party, who ran for president in 2021—without setting foot in the country, because he owed child support and was subject to a court order. (He had also run in 2013.) A populist with a center-right approach, Parisi seems to hope that his catch-all political platform could be a vehicle to forge a bloc in Congress. But that doesn’t seem very realistic: All six members from his party who were elected to parliament in the last election have resigned, following various disputes with him.

Today, support for all of these right-wing candidates combined easily exceeds 50% of the vote. But it is unclear whether the stated preferences of prospective voters are based on the candidates’ personal appeal, shared values, programmatic proposals, or other factors. And this is where Jeannette Jara may represent more than just the center-left coalition. She undoubtedly is the candidate who, in terms of social class, has the most in common with the majority of the population, and the dynamic opposing the common people to the elite could determine this election, especially in any runoff.

In other parts of the world, too, the left is up against the far right. But in Chile this moment has some very significant peculiarities. First, the process that led to this upcoming election: social unrest and two failed constitutional revisions, but also a government that has stabilized the country and managed to move forward with partial yet significant reforms. Second, the leadership: in the primaries, a Communist won the right to represent a broad alliance from the center to the left, and she probably could not have done so without negotiating with the business community a historic increase in the minimum wage, a reduction in the work week, and the most significant pension reform in decades. This is how Jaracomunismo sounds. Will the Chilean people dance to its tune?

Giorgio Jackson is a Chilean engineer and politician. A former student leader, congressman, and minister, he is currently a consultant and PhD researcher in sociology at the University of Barcelona.