MPSC 2026 Prelims Paper-I · Question 87 of 100

Correct — option (3), Jose Antonio Kast Rist. Kast, a lawyer and the leader of Chile's Republican Party, won the presidential run-off held in December 2025, defeating Jeannette Jara, and was sworn in at Valparaiso in March 2026 for the 2026-2030 term. He succeeded Gabriel Boric, whose single four-year term ran from 2022, and the numbering in the stem follows from that succession. The result was widely reported as the sharpest turn to the right in Chilean politics since the return of democracy, and Kast's platform was built on three promises he repeated in his inaugural address: tighter control of immigration, faster economic growth, and action against rising crime. His own political trajectory is part of what made the result notable — he had contested the previous presidential election and lost the 2021 run-off to Boric, so the 2025 contest reversed an earlier defeat. The question is a straightforward recall item with no reasoning route: either the name is in your current-affairs notes or it is not. What makes it answerable for a prepared candidate is that the other three options are all former Presidents of Chile from earlier periods, so the question really asks whether you can place the most recent transfer of power. If you know that Boric held office until March 2026, option (1) is out; if you know that Pinera and Lagos belong to earlier decades, options (2) and (4) go with it, and only option (3) can be the new incumbent.

• (1)Gabriel Boric — Boric is Kast's immediate predecessor, not his successor. Elected at the end of 2021 and sworn in during 2022, he was the youngest person to hold the office and came to it from the student movement and the left-wing coalition that grew out of it. Chile does not permit consecutive re-election of a President, so Boric could not have followed himself; he handed over to Kast in March 2026. This is the option a candidate picks when the name of the outgoing President is the only Chilean name they know.
• (2)Sebastian Pinera — Pinera, a businessman and centre-right politician, served two non-consecutive terms as President — 2010 to 2014, and 2018 to 2022, when he handed office to Boric. He died in a helicopter crash in February 2024, so he could not have taken office in 2026. The option is placed to catch a candidate who remembers Chile's earlier swing to the right and stops there.
• (4)Ricardo Lagos — Lagos, a Socialist, was President of Chile from 2000 to 2006, in the long period of centre-left government that followed the return to democracy. He belongs to a generation of Chilean politics two decades before this question's events, and is included as a recognisable name for a candidate guessing from general familiarity rather than from current affairs.

Chile is a presidential republic on the western coast of South America, running some four thousand kilometres from the Atacama Desert in the north to Patagonia in the south, with the Andes forming its eastern boundary. Its President is directly elected and serves a four-year term without immediate re-election, which produces the pattern visible in this question's option list — Presidents returning after sitting out a term, as Pinera did. Where no candidate wins an absolute majority in the first round, the top two go to a run-off, which is how both the 2021 and the 2025 contests were decided. The capital is Santiago, but the National Congress sits at Valparaiso, which is why presidential inaugurations take place there.

Chile matters to an Indian examiner for reasons beyond the election calendar. It is the world's largest producer of copper and one of the principal producers of lithium, the two minerals at the centre of the global energy transition and of India's own critical minerals strategy; the Atacama brines are part of the South American lithium triangle. Chilean politics since 2019 has also been unusually eventful, with a mass protest movement, two attempts at replacing the Pinochet-era constitution that were rejected in referendums, and successive elections that swung between the left and the right. The 2025 result, in which Kast defeated Jeannette Jara in the run-off, was read internationally as the culmination of that swing, and its themes — migration control, crime and growth — were the themes he carried into office in March 2026.

• Jose Antonio Kast Rist, leader of Chile's Republican Party, won the December 2025 presidential run-off against Jeannette Jara and was sworn in at Valparaiso in March 2026 for the 2026-2030 term
• He succeeded Gabriel Boric, President from 2022, and had himself lost the previous run-off to Boric in 2021
• Sebastian Pinera served two non-consecutive terms, 2010-2014 and 2018-2022, and died in a helicopter crash in February 2024; Ricardo Lagos was President from 2000 to 2006
• Chile's President is directly elected for four years with no immediate re-election, and a run-off is held between the top two candidates if no one wins an outright majority
• Chile is the world's largest copper producer and a major lithium producer, with the Atacama brines forming part of the South American lithium triangle

• Answering with the outgoing incumbent. In any 'who became the new President of X' question, the most recognisable name on the list is usually the person being replaced, and picking it is the single commonest error in this format
• Ignoring the ordinal in the stem. A number like '38th President' is a check on the candidate's timeline, and if you know who held the office immediately before, the ordinal tells you the question is about a change of hands rather than a re-election
• Assuming a former President cannot return. Chile bars immediate re-election but not a later term, which is exactly how Pinera served twice

Current-affairs papers ask 'who became the new head of State or Government of country X' several times a year, and MPSC sets it as a plain four-name recall item with no reasoning route. The reliable preparation is a single sheet, updated monthly, listing every change of head of State or Government, the country, the month and the person replaced. The same sheet answers the variant forms — 'who was sworn in as the Prime Minister of', 'who succeeded X as President of' — and it also protects you against the commonest distractor, the outgoing incumbent.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Jose Antonio Kast, who assumed office as President of Chile in 2026, defeated which candidate in the presidential run-off held in December 2025 ?

  • (a)Michelle Bachelet
  • (b)Jeannette Jara
  • (c)Evelyn Matthei
  • (d)Gabriel Boric

  Answer(b) Jeannette Jara — she was the losing candidate in the December 2025 run-off. Gabriel Boric was the outgoing President and was not a candidate, since Chile does not allow immediate re-election.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The National Congress of Chile, where presidential inaugurations are held, is located in which city ?

  • (a)Santiago
  • (b)Valparaiso
  • (c)Concepcion
  • (d)Antofagasta

  Answer(b) Valparaiso — Santiago is the capital and the seat of government, but the National Congress sits at the port city of Valparaiso, which is where Chilean Presidents are sworn in.