Report: Container Majors Are All Interested in Buying Zim

Potential investors are coming forward after Zim management proposed a buyout (Zim file photo)

Published Dec 4, 2025 2:50 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

Just days after the board of directors of the Israeli shipping company Zim confirmed they were considering alternatives for the future of the company, a report surfaced saying the industry majors are all expressing interest in the company. A sale of Zim, which is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange, however, would be complicated by the strategic importance of the company to Israel and restrictions placed by the government.

The Israeli news outlet Globes reported today, December 4, that Hapag-Lloyd has made an offer, although they believe it is “in the initial stages and negotiations have yet to begin.” Globes also reports that Maersk and MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company have also expressed initial interest. MSC, which is a private company, has long been reported to have significant investors from Israel.

The brewing bidding war for the ninth-largest container carrier was set off by the company’s current president and CEO, Eli Glickman, who has led the company since 2017. Glickman is reported to be working with Israeli investor and shipping magnate Rami Ungar and made an offer that also includes other Zim senior executives to the board of Zim to acquire the company. The board confirmed on November 25 that it had received the offer and was looking at its alternatives.

Glickman is credited with leading a turnaround of a nearly bankrupt carrier and turning it into a strong niche competitor. In addition to maintaining a critical lifeline for Israel, Zim has grown offerings such as its express container service targeted at Asian electronics manufacturers, and is among the first companies to adopt LNG and new technologies. The Gaza war and the overall market pressures in the container sector have made Zim a volatile investment since it went public in 2021, which was also compounded by the decision of long-time investor Idan Ofer’s Kenon Holdings to liquidate its Zim holdings in 2024.

An acquisition of Zim could be complicated by a Special State Share that was issued to the Israeli government in 2004 when the company was privatized. A potential buyer that would exceed 24 percent of the stock must first notify Israel, and a position over 35 percent requires Israeli approval. The special share requires the company to remain incorporated in Israel, and at least a majority of the members of the Board of Directors, including the chairperson of the board and chief executive officer, must be Israeli citizens. 

The company must also maintain a fleet of at least 11 vessels, with at least three being cargo vessels, but it currently has a waiver permitting it to own fewer than the required number of ships. The State of Israel must also consent in writing to any winding-up, merger, or spin-off unless the Special State Share would remain effective.

Globes reports opposition is already growing against a potential sale, and especially to Hapag. It writes that a workers committee is citing the strategic importance of Zim to the country’s trade. It is also highlighting the large investments by Qatar and Saudi Arabia in Hapag-Lloyd.

The Zim board has said that it is considering potential value creation alternatives, including a sale of the company and capital allocation and return opportunities. It confirmed in November that it had received multiple proposals in addition to the proposed management-led buyout. No timeline has been announced for a potential decision on the future of the company, which marked its 80th year in 2025.

MSC Buys Moby Ferries Auctioned to Pay Debt to Aponte Group

Moby Aki is one of the five ro-pax ferries sold to repay the debt to MSC (Moby)

Published Dec 4, 2025 1:30 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

The online auction for five ferries owned by Italy’s Moby Lines was completed with an odd turn of events. The five ships were being sold to repay a debt owed to the Aponte’s who own MSC Mediterranean Shipping, and the buyer of the ro-pax ferries was MSC. The sale was part of a settlement reached between the companies to avoid antitrust issues, with the proceeds being used to repay a loan made by MSC to Moby to save the ferry company from bankruptcy.

The sale is the latest step between the companies that dates back several years. Moby is controlled by the Onorato group and got into financial trouble after mergers and other operational problems. MSC had reached terms with the Onoratos to acquire 49 percent of Moby and to provide a loan valued at €243 million. MSC also had an option to acquire the remaining interest in Moby.

The Italian Competition Authority, however, ruled that there were competition concerns in the consolidation of Italy’s RoRo passenger-freight ferry business. MSC owns ferry operator Grandi Navi Veloci (GNV), and the competition authority cited the lack of competition and barriers for others to enter the market. The settlement agreement called for MSC to relinquish its shares of Moby and for the sale of five vessels to repay the debt.

In an online auction completed on December 2, there was a sole bidder for the vessels Moby Aki and Moby Wonder, operated by Moby, and Moby Ale Due, Athara, and Janas, operated by Moby subsidiary Tirrenia. Shipping Italy is reported the bidder was MSC Group’s SAS subsidiary, which was also the holder of the debt.

The auction was completed at €229.9 million ($268 million). The proceeds will repay most of the debt, with the agreement calling for the remainder to be sold to a third-party, which would manage the debt under conditions to maintain Moby’s economic and financial stability.

The auction terms also stipulated that the two newer vessels, Moby Aki and Moby Wonder, must be chartered back to Moby for a period of 15 years. Shipping Italy speculates the other three vessels will be consolidated into GNV’s fleet. There are also concerns about the seafarers who would lose their jobs as Moby downsizes, but it is believed they will also transfer to MSC to maintain their employment.

Moby said after the terms of the agreement were announced that it would be restructuring its operations. It emerges with a greatly reduced debt, and said plans call for strengthening and reorienting the business model. Most of the consolidation was predicted for services to Sardinia.

The antitrust decision represents a rare setback for MSC, which has been moving aggressively to expand its operations. In addition to the acquisition and construction of containerships, the company made investments in logistics and rail services, launched air cargo, and acquired Gram Car Carriers. The group is also expanding its ports and terminal operations, including a large investment in Hamburg, Germany, and was set to become a leading terminal operator in a deal with BlackRock to buy the international terminal operations from Hutchison. MSC is now the world’s largest container carrier, having topped 7 million TEU of capacity, which makes its TEU capacity 50 percent larger than Maersk.

On Being Female in a Potentially Fascist Country

Andrea Mazzarino

 December 1, 2025

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Image by Jørgen Håland.

It’s strange so many years later, in the United States of America, to feel as if I’m living in a country threatening to become like the Russia of Vladimir Putin that I spent years experiencing earlier in this century. To start, let me tell you a little something about that.

For decades as a young adult, I lived and traveled in Russia. I was an anthropology doctoral student and human rights worker, studying the effects of President Vladimir Putin’s centralizing policies and that country’s Christian nationalist media on the everyday lives of Russians. In one of my last projects, I investigated the government’s practice of separating kids with disabilities (and poorer kids generally) from their parents and detaining them in closed institutions. My report detailed how much changes in society when the government excludes swaths of the population from basic services like healthcare, education, and even just access to city streets. The answer? Everything.

That marginalization was part of a governing process aimed at further enriching the wealthiest few and those in power. It reflected the leadership of figures lacking a basic understanding of what all people need and deserve. I consider that a hallmark of a fascist regime.

One of my last evenings in Russia was a chilly November night in 2014 in the northern city of St. Petersburg. Mothers and children, grandparents and teenagers alike stepped with care to avoid slipping on black ice and bumping into (and possibly falling thanks to) large plastic advertisements for fast food, clothing, cosmetic dentistry, plastic surgery, and even IVF treatments sticking up like weeds on the cobblestoned sidewalks of the city’s center.

Those glowing placards seemed to replace what had once been a slew of different kinds of people when I first traveled to Russia as a college student in the late 1990s. In the same central train stations of that city, old women then sold carrots and beets from cardboard boxes they had lugged from their country homes. Young women could sometimes be seen in bikinis and stiletto heels (even in that weather!) with beer advertisements scrawled across their chests. Uzbek and Tajik men scrambled to finish construction on new stores, restaurants, and apartment buildings before winter set in. Roma mothers, their babies strapped to their backs in jewel-toned scarves, begged for money for food and housing.

Sometimes, when traffic grew too congested for their liking, Russia’s newly rich — aptly dubbed “New Russians” in the country’s popular press — drove their luxury Mercedes and BMWs onto the sidewalks, forcing pedestrians like me, along with mothers pushing strollers and a few wind-worn men and women hurrying to work, to scatter in panic. Despite the chaos and a significant amount of deprivation (more on that later), for many I met then, much seemed possible, including working for ever larger companies, migration, and new luxuries. Electronic remixes of Western songs like “If I Were a Rich Girl” and Cher’s “Believe” blasted from vendors’ tinny sounding boom boxes on repeat.

By the time of my last trip to Russia in 2014, however, shiny buildings had been built, older ones renovated, and developers with close ties to Russia’s political elite were even richer, thanks to the country’s growing oil wealth. Roma (or gypsy) families were no longer anywhere to be seen, as St. Petersburg’s government had conducted “purges” of the city’s informal Roma settlements. Nor were old women selling their wares on the streets, while Central Asian migrants from poorer countries to Russia’s south seemed ever fewer and less visible during the busiest times. Indeed, local authorities were rounding them up and detaining them without warrants, based on appearance and language alone. (Sound familiar?)

Having spent years interviewing families who could no longer access this new cityscape with their kids who used wheelchairs or were blind or deaf, all I could think was:  I’m lucky to be able to go home to the United States.

That last night in 2014, I was also nearing the end of the first trimester of my first pregnancy. I rubbed my still barely visible baby bump as I spotted an old friend from St. Petersburg who was waiting to meet me for dinner at a nearby cafe. As I sat down with her, a waitress approached our table. She noted my American accent and told me with gentle, motherly scorn that I shouldn’t be traveling while pregnant. As if on cue, stomach cramps made me double up. After a trip to the restroom revealed that I was bleeding, I started to wonder if the waitress had been right. Was it possible that my relentless travel had caused me to miscarry — and in a country where I knew women sometimes faced withering criticism and blame for poor pregnancy outcomes? Just stay with me until I go home, I implored the baby I carried.

At least, my friend understood. Before she gave birth to her healthy son in the 1990s, when Russia’s newly privatized healthcare system included few viable options for working-class women, it took exhausted, overworked doctors weeks after she started feeling sick during her first pregnancy to determine that the baby inside her had actually died. She had an abortion without anesthesia and returned to her teaching job right away to make ends meet. And stories like hers were anything but unique then.

Politicized Reproductive Health

By 2014, urgent-care clinics and hospitals were plentiful enough in large cities like St. Petersburg and Moscow, but many were exorbitantly expensive even for young Americans like me. Worse yet, the attitudes of medical workers toward women who couldn’t or wouldn’t have babies had not exactly softened under a president — Vladimir Putin, of course — known for describing women as “guardians of the hearth and linchpins of large families with many children.”

Fearing the worst, my friend snapped into action, calling around to several acquaintances until one located an obstetrician she trusted who traveled from her home on the outskirts of the city to a clinic downtown.

In the 1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet empire, the International Monetary Fund and other international lenders pushed Russia to slash public spending and rapidly privatize state functions as part of the deal for their crucial loans to a society then in trouble. In the end, such changes dismantled the Soviet Union’s social safety net, including universal healthcare.

Well-connected elites carved up many of the remaining state assets and used them for their own private gain. Included in Russia’s newly privatized healthcare system were private clinics for the ultra-wealthy offering hotel-like amenities, including private rooms, hot tea, and soft background music. Ordinary Russians who couldn’t afford such ritzy private services used the remaining state clinics, though they were often overcrowded, undersupplied, and understaffed in the austere new world so many Russians had no choice but to navigate, especially outside the big cities. What’s more, as anthropologist Michele Rivkin-Fish has pointed out, private healthcare facilities didn’t mean better quality care, as medical workers and all kinds of public figures tended to encourage married, racially White (Slavic) Russian women to have more children, no matter the dignity and long-term health of women in Russia more broadly.

It would be an understatement to say that, by the time I left there in 2014, politics infused every aspect of Russian life. I’ll never forget, for instance, that a colleague of mine, who researched military abuses against ethnic minorities in Russia’s southernmost republics, had to leave the country to give birth after she received threatening anonymous text messages claiming that she and her unborn child were linked to Islamic insurgents in that part of the country.

While I had some reason to be afraid myself in that context, I wasn’t nearly high profile enough to truly worry and I was lucky as well. After all, my friend had a friend who indeed had a doctor she trusted. So, in the end, I was able to get an ultrasound, which showed that I still had a healthy pregnancy.

I traveled back to the U.S. and gave birth to my son the very same day that Donald Trump descended that golden escalator to announce his candidacy for president of the United States (claiming that thousands of people were awaiting him below when only a few score were there) and launched his bid on the claim that Mexico was sending “rapists” to the United States.

Nah, I thought, as I watched the cooing baby in my arms. Probably won’t happen. I took my boy home and, being a military spouse, struggled with the military health insurance system, Tricare (aka Try-For-Care), to get coverage for basic costs like a breast pump. (No such luck, because, as an insurance rep told me, I was supposed to stay home and breastfeed him directly.) As for medicine for a common mouth infection in newborns, I got it but only after multiple appeals. I was then in an America plagued by privatization, ongoing foreign wars, and a lack of corporate accountability, but at least, my family would be okay — for now.

Back in the U.S.A.

And here we all are.

I wish I could say that my family — and yours — live in a reality that’s different from the one I left in Russia when I took my pregnant self home in 2014. I look around at what’s happening in our country and worry that we may already be on a superhighway to the sort of class- and race-stratified autocracy that it took Russia so many years to become after the Soviet Union collapsed.

In particular, in the years since the Supreme Court overturned the right of American women to have abortions in 2022, 41 states have put abortion restrictions into effect, including 14 with outright bans. Some 40% of women now live in states with such bans or significant restrictions. In a handful of states like Idaho and Texas, women and expectant parents have had to cross state lines to get routine miscarriage- or pregnancy-related healthcare because doctors can face criminal or civil liabilities for providing it. (It may not be coincidental that in states with severe abortion restrictions, infant mortality has gone up significantly, particularly among people of color.) I could go on about the ways this administration and its allies on the Supreme Court and elsewhere are denying poor and middle-class women basic healthcare, but I’m sure you already get the picture.

Maybe since most Americans haven’t lived under an actual dictatorship the way many Russians have, state capture here is faster and easier, especially in a country with a resurgent Evangelical right (After all, didn’t Jesus say, “Suffer little children…”?)

New Americans?

These days, many people in my community and in my day job as a psychotherapist have lost hope that Donald Trump’s government could change things for the better. Many now tell me that they might not even vote in an upcoming election because government can’t be trusted to tell the truth and act on behalf of ordinary people. I’ve heard folks say that they can rely only on themselves (and maybe loved ones) to help them in crises like driving across state lines for healthcare. Among some of the highly educated parents I know in my DOGE-stricken D.C. suburb, I see not mass outrage or the urge to mobilize as much as a desire to homestead and foster a post-apocalyptic self-reliance, much in the style of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.

Well, good luck, and thanks for helping Trump consolidate power.

But for now, the one thing I think we still do have that Russia doesn’t is mass demonstrations like the recent No Kings Day ones where a record seven million Americans turned out nationally and a (relatively) free press, which is not to be taken for granted or let go easily. To show up in public as fully human and speak out for others is itself a sign of hope and possibility. Rage-filled political leaders and their minions would not invest so much time in intimidating those who speak out if free speech didn’t matter so much. (Think of that Trump-ordered military flyover while Epstein abuse survivors held a press conference in Washington recently.)

In days marked by so much uncompromising confrontation, I’m reminded of anthropology’s insight that, during a period of upheaval and movement, the people going through it can change significantly, though usually with some risk and pain. Migrations, mass demonstrations, even pregnancy — all of them hold the potential for self-transformation, particularly when people accompany one another on their journeys. The reason we should show up at demonstrations, write op-eds, and protest in any way we can imagine is to stand in solidarity with one another, even if we don’t change the minds of the people watching us. (We might, though!) In other words, collective action is its own form of social transformation. It is a way to forge, if not a new America, then new Americans who will not let democracy die without a struggle. Without it, I fear we’re likely to end up with Donald Trump’s version of Vladimir Putin’s Russia — at least, the one I left in 2014.

That’s why what we all do next matters so much. Remember that, in a democracy, we the people are the government. Whether we’re finding a service for someone who needs it, offering a friend in need a ride, warning of federal police or National Guard in the neighborhood, speaking out against abuse, or just meeting friends for dinner, the exercise of our civil rights is a thread from which our democracy hangs. Such actions also alter the landscapes we hold in our imaginations, whether we like it or not. Simply put, as long as there are more people than military in the streets, the message to those who are scared is simple: this might feel like a foreign land, but you’re not alone.

This piece first appeared on TomDispatch.

Andrea Mazzarino co-founded Brown University’s Costs of War Project. She is an activist and social worker interested in the health impacts of war. She has held various clinical, research, and advocacy positions, including at a Veterans Affairs PTSD Outpatient Clinic, with Human Rights Watch, and at a community mental health agency. She is the co-editor of the new book War and Health: The Medical Consequences of the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

After Chile’s November 16th Election: Democracy, Authoritarian Populism, and 35 Years of Unresolved Tensions

NOVEMBER 29, 2025

The left faces immense challenges in the second round of Chile’s presidential election, argues Juan Andrés Mena.

Chile heads to a presidential election runoff on December 14th after no candidate achieved an absolute majority in the first round. This election is not simply another contest between left and right: it is the latest chapter in a 35-year struggle over the meaning of democracy, the legacy of the dictatorship, and the unresolved crisis of Chile’s neoliberal model.

The two candidates who advanced to the next round – Jeannette Jara and José Antonio Kast – represent opposing historical projects. Jara, who obtained 26.8% of the vote, is a lawyer, public administrator, and former Minister of Labour. A moderate member of the Communist Party and winner of her coalition’s primary, she embodies the democratic, institutional path of reform.

Kast, with 23.9%, represents the consolidation of far-right authoritarian populism. His biography is inseparable from Chile’s authoritarian past: son of a Nazi who fled after the war, brother and apprentice of Pinochet’s closets collaborators, supporter of Pinochet in the 1988 referendum, and political heir of the most conservative faction of the dictatorship’s legacy. His third presidential attempt comes after aligning himself closely with Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán.

Behind them, Franco Parisi, a pragmatic, non-ideological outsider, came in third with 19.7%. He was followed by Johannes Kaiser, a disruptive far-right YouTuber with 13.9%, and Evelyn Matthei, daughter of a former member of the military junta and the candidate of the traditional right, with 12.5%.  The rest of the candidates barely reached 3% of the votes. Taken together, these results make Kast the clear favourite to become Chile’s next president.

Although these dynamics echo global trends, Chile’s election cannot be understood without situating it within three interconnected historical phases, each with specific political conditions, actors, and grievances that directly shape the 2025 landscape: two decades of neoliberal ‘peace,’ one decade of challenges, and five years of anomie.

Two Decades of Neoliberal ‘Peace’ (1990–2010)

After the coup that ended Salvador Allende’s government, Chile lived 17 years under Pinochet, during which a radical neoliberal experiment was imposed. Guided by the Chicago Boys, the dictatorship transformed the State, privatized social services, and reconfigured politics under a constitution engineered by Jaime Guzmán to preserve this model well beyond the regime’s end.

This is the country that returned to democracy in 1990: an unequal, market-driven society with weak public institutions and an electoral system designed to neutralize change. For 20 years, the Concertación (coalition of parties) governed this inherited model with relative continuity. Despite important democratic advances and reductions in extreme poverty, the coalition did not fundamentally challenge the structure of the dictatorship’s reforms. The electoral system ensured that only two blocs – the centre-left and the right – had representation, generating near-perfect legislative deadlock and making structural reform nearly impossible.

Throughout these two decades, Chile experienced what international observers called the “Chilean Miracle” – an image sustained by a commodities boom and strict macroeconomic discipline. Yet beneath the surface, a fragile society was taking shape. Middle-class families, lacking robust social protections, went heavily into debt to finance education, health care, and pensions – goods provided by a private market that offered no guarantee of quality or security. The first generations retiring under the privatized pension system discovered their savings were insufficient to ensure a dignified old age. A precarious workforce, often trained in low-quality for-profit universities, struggled to find stable employment.

Although these grievances were growing, they did not translate into major political mobilization. Guzmán’s institutional architecture had effectively contained conflict and restricted political imagination.

This period laid the structural foundations of today’s crisis. The unresolved inequalities, social precarity, and weak public services, along with the citizens’ perception of the inefficacy of the political system to solve any of these issues, created fertile ground for both anti-elite outsiders like Parisi and authoritarian ‘law-and-order’ narratives like Kast’s to grow which contributed to the collapse of traditional parties in 2025.

A Decade of Challenges (2010–2019)

The first right-wing government since the return to democracy took office in 2010 under Sebastián Piñera. Within a year, the country erupted. The 2011 student movement – demanding free, high-quality public education – became the largest and most influential social mobilization since the dictatorship. It marked the beginning of a broader cycle of protest that included movements against the privatized pension system, powerful feminist mobilizations, and regionally rooted environmental struggles.

These mobilizations fundamentally changed the political landscape. A new generation of leaders emerged from the streets, including the future president Gabriel Boric, who won a seat in the lower chamber in 2013. Their critique was not simply about specific policies: it was an indictment of the entire post-authoritarian model and the Concertación’s stewardship of it.

Michelle Bachelet’s return to the presidency in 2014 with an absolute majority in Congress seemed to offer a moment of transformative potential. Yet her coalition lacked cohesion, internal conflicts stalled major reforms, and by 2018 the right returned to power with Piñera’s second government.

By then, frustration had reached a breaking point. In 2019, a combination of fare increases, rising living costs and insensitive remarks by authorities ignited nationwide protests of unprecedented scale. Millions took to the streets, demanding dignity and structural change. Piñera declared Chile “at war,” deployed the military – something unseen since the dictatorship – and imposed curfews, further inflaming tensions.

The uprising culminated in the November 2019 cross-party agreement to initiate a constitutional reform process, an outcome previously unimaginable. The decade closed with the political system under profound question, the legitimacy of the post-1990 model shattered, and the party system destabilized.

The decade of challenges produced the new political actors competing today, shaped the left that governs under Boric, and fuelled the polarization that Kast mobilizes. The mistrust toward traditional institutions born in this period is a direct driver of both the rise of the far right and the success of anti-system candidates like Parisi in 2021 and 2025.

Five Years of Anomie (2020–2025)

The years following the uprising were the most turbulent in recent Chilean history. The pandemic exposed the fragility of the privatized welfare system. The first constitutional reform  process, despite its democratic spirit, produced a draft heavily criticized for overreach and was rejected by a large majority in a campaign marked by disinformation. A second process, dominated by Kast’s party, ended with another rejection. These failures produced deep exhaustion and disillusionment across the political spectrum.

Gabriel Boric’s 2021 victory – achieved with the highest turnout since 1990 – was largely the result of massive democratic mobilization against Kast, rather than a direct support for Boric. Thus, once in office, Boric confronted a fragmented Congress and required an alliance with the same former Concertación he had once harshly criticized. This forced pragmatic compromises that disappointed parts of his base and reinforced a sense that democratic institutions were incapable of solving people’s problems.

Politically, the right underwent a dramatic transformation. The death of former President Piñera in a helicopter accident symbolized the end of the ‘democratic right’. Similar to the 2021 election, in the 2025 first round, Kast and Kaiser decisively outperformed Evelyn Matthei, signalling the definitive collapse of the traditional right and the rise of a new authoritarian populist bloc.

A decisive turning point was the introduction of compulsory voting, which brought nearly 13.5 million Chileans – 52.5% more than the previous election – to the polls. Many of these new voters were politically distant, economically insecure, and distrustful of institutions. They became the main reservoir of support for Franco Parisi, who ran once again as an outsider, and for Kast, whose fundamentalist conservatism and authoritarian discourse resonated with demands for order and restoration amid chaos.

This period directly shaped the conditions of the first round: a vastly expanded electorate, a challenged new left and weakened traditional one, a discredited, almost non-existent centre, and a far right that has successfully redefined itself as the champion of order and stability to the detriment of the traditional right.

November 16th: A New Political Map

The first round of the 2025 election produced unprecedented outcomes. With the highest participation in Chile’s history under democracy, voters delivered several clear messages.

First, the traditional right collapsed, replaced by a consolidated authoritarian-populist right led by Kast. Matthei, considered Piñera’s political heir, was decisively overtaken by Kast and Kaiser, confirming that the historic centre-right no longer has a social or ideological base.

Second, Franco Parisi, running on a platform mixing anti-communism, anti-Pinochetism, and anti-elite resentment, captured a significant portion of the newly incorporated electorate. He even surpassed the left in regions historically associated with left-wing voting patterns.

These results reveal a new cleavage replacing the old democracy-versus-dictatorship divide that dominated Chilean politics for decades. Today, the electorate is split between an authoritarian-populist right offering order, identity politics, and punitive solutions; a large, volatile anti-elite, ideologically diffuse segment worried about insecurity and the cost of living; and a democratic left struggling to reconnect with disillusioned citizens.

The runoff between Jara and Kast is thus not about typical left-right competition. It is the crystallization of the long-term contradictions of Chile’s post-authoritarian trajectory. Kast represents the reaction to three decades of unresolved social tensions, institutional fragility, and disillusionment with democratic governance. Jara embodies the attempt to salvage democracy by addressing these grievances without renouncing pluralism.

The 2025 election is the culmination of 35 years of accumulated tensions. The neoliberal ‘peace’ created the inequalities, frustrations, and institutional constraints that later exploded. The decade of challenges delegitimized the post-1990 order and birthed new political actors. Yet it was unable to produce a new order capable of replace the existing one, satisfying the historically postponed social needs. The years of anomie fractured institutions, exhausted citizens and opened the door to authoritarian populism.

If the left wishes not only to win but to survive, it must defend democracy while confronting the demands of those who have lost faith in both the political system and in democracy as a tool for solving their daily problems. The challenge is immense, but so are the stakes: the future of Chile’s democratic path itself.

Juan Andrés Mena is a lawyer, MA in Public Policy, and researcher at Nodo XXI.

Image:Jeannette Jara, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Live_Especial_Mujeres_Comit%C3%A9_Pol%C3%ADtico,_Ministra_Jannette_Jara_%28crop2%29.jpg.

 Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/secretaria_general_de_gobierno/52354955101/. Author: Vocería de Gobierno, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.

From progressive decline to reactionary advance in Chile

Friday 28 November 2025, by Karina Nohales, Pablo Abufom



Everything indicates that Chile will be governed for the next four years by a coalition of right-wing parties, headed by one of its most extreme factions, with José Antonio Kast at the helm. That right wing —Pinochetism— has existed in the country for decades, but for the first time it would come to power through elections, with the support of popular sectors and in an international context marked by the global advance of far-right forces.


The election results of Sunday, November 16, clearly demonstrate the magnitude of the right-wing victory. In the presidential election, the right-wing bloc garnered 50.3% of the vote, distributed among José Antonio Kast (23.9%, Partido Republicano or Republican Party), Johannes Kaiser (13.9%, Partido Nacional Libertario or National Libertarian Party), and Evelyn Matthei (12.5%, Chile Vamos or Let’s Go, Chile).

At the same time, the right wing is consolidating its majority in Congress. Of the 155 seats in the Chamber of Deputies, the sector already aligned with Kast holds 76, compared to the 64 held by the left and centre-left. In the Senate, the right-wing bloc controls half of the seats.

If we take into account that the Partido de la Gente or Party of the People (PDG) won 14 seats in the Chamber, everything indicates that the right wing in government will be able to form a parliamentary majority capable of reaching even the 4/7 needed to promote constitutional reforms.

In this context, the traditional right wing —the Unión Demócrata Independiente or Independent Democratic Union, Renovación Nacional or National Renewal and Evolución Política known as Evópoli or Political Evolution, grouped in the Chile Vamos coalition— ends up aligning itself behind Kast after an internal dispute for the leadership of the sector and after suffering a resounding defeat. Their presidential candidate came in fifth, behind all other right-wing candidates; the bloc went from 12 to 5 seats in the Senate and from 52 to 23 in the Chamber of Deputies, and one of the coalition parties was dissolved.

Far from any policy of "cordon sanitaire" —such as those implemented by liberal-conservative sectors in other countries to isolate the far right—in Chile the traditional right maintains historical and organic ties with Pinochetism. This connection explains its rapid subordination to Kast’s leadership in the current political cycle.

Meanwhile, the official candidate Jeannette Jara —nominated by the Unidad por Chile or Unity for Chile pact and from the Communist Party — won by a narrow margin in a campaign that, despite being the only progressive candidacy, was not a left-wing campaign. The 26.7% she obtained fell short of the expectations generated by her position as Minister of Labour and even below the 38% that supported the 2022 constitutional proposal.

It is true that Jara faced an adverse scenario: an unfavourable international situation, the strain of being part of the ruling party at a time of widespread challenge, and the weight of an effective anti-communist narrative. But it is also true that neither the government nor the candidate developed a policy aimed at confronting the extreme right. On the contrary, in sensitive areas such as migration and security, they chose to appropriate part of the narrative and programme of their adversaries. She also made no attempt to distance herself from the persistent neoliberal consensus that all institutional forces have embraced since the defeat of the constitutional proposal in October 2022, beginning with Boric’s own government. This is one of the clearest expressions of the far right’s advance: it not only persuades the electorate but also manages to impose its political agenda across the board.

The surprise from the first round of the presidential election was the 19.7% obtained by Franco Parisi, candidate of the PDG, a party that appeals to the aspirations of middle sectors through a combination of monetary populism, securitised xenophobia and crypto-digital rhetoric against corruption and the "privileges" of public officials. Although all the polls placed him fifth, he finished third, ahead of Kaiser and Matthei. In his third presidential bid, Parisi tripled his 2021 vote and won the most votes in all four northern regions, a key mining area marked by a widespread anti-immigration agenda due to its border location through which migrants from the rest of the continent enter. Parisi has thus become the main source of votes that Jeannette Jara will try to capture, something she made explicit in her speech on the evening of Sunday, November 16.

Initial analyses show a marked territorial division of the vote. A report from the Faro UDD think tank shows that Parisi triumphed in the "mining north" (regions of Arica, Tarapacá, Antofagasta, and Atacama), Jara obtained a majority in "central metropolitan Chile" (Metropolitan and Valparaíso Regions, as well as the far south of Aysén and Magallanes), and Kast dominated in the "agricultural south" (O’Higgins, Maule, Ñuble, Biobío, Araucanía, Los Ríos, and Los Lagos).

This fragmentation is also socioeconomic. A particularly critical piece of data for the government candidate is that her performance in low- and middle-income municipalities was worse than in high-income ones, a trend opposite to that of Kast, whose vote increased in lower-income municipalities and fell in wealthier ones. These differences are even more significant when you consider that voting was mandatory in the election and had a participation rate of 85% of registered voters, the highest since 1989.

Another relevant fact for the scenario that opens up for the second round and for the next government is that, of the 25 parties legally constituted at the time of the election, 14 are to be dissolved under the Political Parties Law, which requires a minimum of 5% of the votes in the last election of deputies or, alternatively, obtaining at least four elected parliamentarians in two different regions. Of the 14 parties that will disappear, 8 are left-wing, 4 centrist, and 2 right-wing. The result is conclusive: after this election, all left-wing parties outside the governing coalition are legally dissolved. One of the causes of this debacle is the inability to build a unified list in an electoral system —based on the D’Hondt method— that rewards pacts and severely punishes dispersion, since the most voted lists attract candidacies that, even with equal or greater individual support, are left out if they compete in isolation.

Political processes—including electoral ones—have a direct impact on collective emotions, and today that impact is expressed in a strong disillusionment within the left-wing forces. We also know that the social and electoral rise of the far right is not an exclusively Chilean phenomenon. It has occurred with Bolsonaro in Brazil, it is happening with Milei in Argentina, and in the United States with Trump. This present moment demands that we learn from the experiences of the people and left-wing movements that have already weathered the reactionary advance from within the government. Not all trajectories are the same, but internationalist dialogue is a necessary condition for understanding the tasks that lie ahead in the next political cycle and in the face of the most likely governing scenario.

In the immediate future, with the second round of the presidential election on December 14th approaching, it is worth asking whether the margin by which Kast may win is irrelevant or not. Calling for a vote for Jara means explaining why we do so even while holding a deeply critical view of her and her millieu, and why we do so even knowing that it’s an election that will likely be lost. It’s not that difficult: after all, a policy of radical transformation almost never starts under favourable conditions, and yet we persist in it.

The first political task of this situation is to deploy an anti-fascist pedagogy that reaffirms the importance of putting all our vital forces into preventing the most extreme version of the programme of exploitation from being imposed without counterweight and without resistance. It is essential that those who feel discouraged today can consciously come together for shared reflection and a call to resume organising and mobilising. To build a broad base of opposition to the future far-right government, it matters how one loses: it is necessary to lose with one’s head held high and with the greatest possible strategic clarity.

The recovery of our strength along with the construction of a response to the crisis from the point of view of the working class — in opposition to both emboldened fascism and bankrupt progressivism — will require serious programmatic work, which must be developed within the collective action of popular movements, and not only in progressive think tanks or from opposition parliamentary benches. Faced with the conservative, authoritarian, nationalist, patriarchal, and capitalist program of the Chilean right, popular movements will have the responsibility to become the first line of defense and the main trench from which to organise a counter-offensive.

November 18, 2025

Translated by David Fagan for International Viewpoint from Revista Jacobin.The article is part of the series Latin American Situation and Argentine Elections 2025, a collaboration between Revista Jacobin and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation.


Attached documentsfrom-progressive-decline-to-reactionary-advance-in-chile_a9282.pdf (PDF - 914.1 KiB)
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Chile
After the 1973 Coup in Chile
The coup in Chile
The Chile Coup and after
The rising class consciousness of the proletariat and the problem of power
Debate on the counter revolution in Chile (1973)

Karina Nohales  is a lawyer, member of the Chilean Committee of Women Workers and Trade Unionists and the Internationalist Committee/March 8 Feminist Collective. She is in the editorial collective of Jacobin América Latina

Pablo Abufo is Editor of Posiciones, Revista de Debate Estratégico, founding member of Centro Social and Librería Proyección and part of the editorial collective of Revista Jacobín.


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