Far-right candidate Jose Antonio Kast is favoured to clinch a runoff victory next month despite lagging slightly behind governing coalition candidate Jeannette Jara in Chile's first-round presidential vote.

With nearly all ballots tallied, Jara, the first Communist Party member to be a finalist for the Chilean presidency, was holding 27 per cent of the vote versus 24 per cent for Kast, a tight margin that underscored deep political divisions.

An eventual win for Kast would put in place an administration that is further to the right than any other since the Pinochet dictatorship.

A December 14 runoff will pit those two ideological extremes against each other, as many voters signalled that they were prioritising crime and immigration over the progressive reforms that defined the last elec

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