Chile’s electoral finance system has undergone major reforms over the past two decades in response to corruption scandals, creating a mixed model that combines public funding with private donations from individuals. This report analyses how candidates for Chile’s 2025 parliamentary elections financed and spent campaign resources, drawing on official electoral data and interviews with candidates, campaign staff and electoral officials.
The study finds that public funding is now the main source of campaign finance and plays an important role in reducing inequalities between candidates. However, significant gaps remain. Women and younger candidates generally received less funding than men and older candidates, particularly in personal contributions and private donations from third parties. Interviewees also reported a lack of transparency in how political parties distribute campaign resources, with funding often concentrated on candidates considered more competitive.
The report also highlights the growing importance of digital campaigning, which now accounts for a substantial share of campaign activity despite being only partially visible in official spending records. While Chile’s accountability and reporting system is widely regarded as transparent, candidates described it as complex and burdensome, and some argued that electoral fines are too low to act as effective deterrents. The authors recommend greater transparency in party funding decisions, improved reporting of digital campaign spending, fairer access to electoral credit, stronger sanctions for violations, and closer scrutiny of how political funding is used both during and between election campaigns.
This report is currently only available in Spanish.