This coming weekend, Chile will witness another presidential election — the ninth since the U.S.-backed dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet stepped down from power in 1990. While several candidates are seeking to woo voters in the first round of balloting this month, the main battle for the presidency will most likely come down to two figures in the second round in December: the Communist Party’s Jeannette Jara Román (age 51), who is running for the incumbent Apruebo Dignidad coalition, and the far right politician José Antonio Kast (age 59) of the Republican Party.

At first glance, in a country where less than 10 percent of the media is publicly owned and the rest (with a strong anti-progressive bias) is in private hands, putting forward Jara as a presidential candidate may appear

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