Global Election Updates: Chile, Honduras, Portugal, & Kosovo

Latin America

Recently, Chile and Honduras held presidential elections. In both instances, right-wing candidates defeated incumbent left-wing governments, continuing a trend in Latin America, as evidenced by the rise of Javier Milei in Argentina and Rodrigo Paz in Bolivia. The results offer an opportunity for the Trump Administration to strengthen its alliances with conservative governments in South America aligned with U.S. priorities, particularly on drug trafficking and migration, a key objective in the Western Hemisphere under the Trump Administration.

In Chile, ultraconservative candidate Jose Antonio Kast of the Republican Party secured 58% of the vote following the runoff election on December 14, defeating Jeannette Jara of the ruling Communist Party (42%). Widespread public discontent with President Gabriel Boric’s handling of rising crime rates, persistent inflation, growing inequalities, and immigration shifted voters toward opposition candidates. Jose Antonio Kast, an admirer of former dictator Augusto Pinochet, campaigned on dismantling crime networks and promised mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, who in Chile are predominantly Venezuelan. As an active participant of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Kast has stated that he will strengthen Chile’s diplomatic ties with conservative leaders such as Donald Trump, Giorgia Meloni, Javier Milei, and Nayib Bukele. On March 11, Jose Antonio Kast will be sworn in as president for a four-year term.

In Honduras, right-wing candidate Nasry “Tito” Asfura declared victory on December 24, after technical outages and computing failures delayed vote counting in the November 30 election and fueled allegations of fraud. In a very tight election, Tito” Asfura won the presidency with 40.2% of the vote, closely followed by center-right candidate Salvador Nasralla (39.5%), and significantly outpacing Rixi Moncada (19%), the candidate of the ruling party. Even though President Xiomara Castro alleged fraud and ordered a full recount of votes, the National Electoral Council ruled that a vote recount would be unconstitutional and ratified Tito Asfura’s victory. President Castro also denounced U.S. interference in the election, citing President Donald Trump’s public endorsement of Nasry Asfura as the only candidate the U.S. would work with and criticizing his pardon for former president Juan Orlando Hernández, a member of Asfura’s party, imprisoned in the U.S. for drug trafficking. Before his inauguration on January 27, Tito Asfura visited Washington, D.C., to discuss with Secretary of State Marco Rubio bilateral cooperation initiatives on transnational crime and illegal migration.

Europe

In January, Portugal held presidential elections in which pro-EU socialist candidate António José Seguro emerged as the leading contender but fell short of an outright victory, triggering a second-round runoff scheduled for February 8. Kosovo held snap parliamentary elections in December.

The initial results of the Presidential elections in Portugal have raised concerns, as José Seguro (31.11% of the vote) was followed closely in the polls by André Ventura (23.52%), the founder of the relatively new far-right Chega Party. While Seguro is expected to win in February’s second round, Ventura’s performance and that of his party are significant, as they mirror the declining popularity of centrist parties in Europe and the growing appeal of far-right parties. Until this election, Portugal had largely avoided this growing political trend.

In late December, Kosovo held snap parliamentary elections following months of political instability and failed attempts at forming a government. The vote resulted in a victory for the incumbent Albanian nationalist Vetëvendosje party, led by Alban Kurti, but it is still not enough to form an independent government.

In addition, Kosovo’s Central Election Commission ordered a full vote recount on January 19^th, citing a “high degree of inaccuracies in tallies.” The recount will not affect the allocation of seats in parliament, as discrepancies were identified at the municipal level. Arrests were announced soon after of at least 109 people accused of falsifying election results. The recount will further delay the formation of a government and Parliament’s ratification of agreements with the EU to restore EU funding, which has been frozen since 2023 amid escalating tensions between Kosovo and Serbia. Kosovo’s EU accession prospects hinge on normalizing relations with Serbia, a condition repeatedly emphasized by Brussels.

Additionally, it appears that Kurti will use his party’s renewed mandate to deepen relations with Washington as well. Notably, Kosovo’s bid to join U.S. President Trump’s Board of Peace (BoP) was approved in early January, signaling major diplomatic recognition by the U.S. For Trump, who has claimed on multiple occasions to have achieved peace between Kosovo and Serbia through his first administration’s successful efforts to broker a deal between the two, Kosovo’s membership in the (BoP) helps legitimize the initiative while potentially offering Kosovo an opportunity to improve bilateral relations with the United States.