Chilean voters elected the most right-wing president in 35 years of democracy on Sunday, with official results showing arch-conservative Jose Antonio Kast with a thumping victory and his rival quickly conceding defeat.
With about 80 per cent of the votes counted, Kast had 58 per cent of the vote, an unassailable lead over Jeannette Jara, a Communist Party member heading a broad leftist coalition.
In central Santiago, Kast supporters beeped car horns, waved flags and cheered a man who once openly defended the bloody dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
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Kast campaigned on promises to expel hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants, close the northern border, tackle high rates of violent crime and restart a stalled economy.
Once one of the safest and most prosperous countries in the Americas, Chile has been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, violent social protests and an influx of organised crime groups.
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“I have high expectations that he will fix the immigration issue,” said 42-year-old social worker Maribel Saavedra.