SANTIAGO, Chile — Chileans voted for a new president and parliament on Sunday in a contest expected to favor the hard right as candidates play on popular fears over organized crime and immigration.

It’s the first of what’s likely to be two rounds of presidential elections in the South American country, as polls show none of the candidates clearing the 50% threshold needed to avoid a runoff scheduled for Dec. 14.

This also marks Chile’s first presidential election since voting became mandatory and the registration of voters automatic, adding an element of unpredictability to the race and millions more apathetic voters — given past elections marked by abysmal turnout rates.

Over 15.7 million people are now obliged to vote, and those who fail to do so face fines up to $100.

Chile will also renew the entire lower house of Congress and part of the Senate.

On the surface, the election offers Chileans a dramatic choice between two extremes: Jeannette Jara, 51, a card-carrying communist and former labor minister in the left-wing government, and, among other right-wing contenders, José Antonio Kast, 59, an ultraconservative lawyer and Catholic father of nine who opposes abortion and vows to shrink the state.

“The vote largely defines what our lives will be like for the next four years,” Jara said as she cast her ballot in a northern suburb of Santiago, the capital.

But the campaign has steered the starkly opposed front-runners toward the shared theme of public insecurity, as anxiety about a rise in gang-driven crime and a recent surge of immigration from crisis-stricken Venezuela seizes voters’ focus.

“They’re vying for the center,” said Rodolfo Disi, a political scientist at Chile’s Adolfo Ibáñez University, citing Jara’s promotion of fiscal restraint and Kast’s decision to drop the traditional-values pitch that defined his past two failed presidential bids.

All front-runners have taken an iron-fisted approach to immigration. Chile’s foreign population has doubled since 2017, with 1.6 million immigrants recorded last year in the nation of 18 million. An estimated 330,000 are undocumented.

Polling behind Jara and Kast in the eight-candidate field are Johannes Kaiser, 49, a radical libertarian congressman and YouTuber, and Evelyn Matthei, 72, a veteran center-right politician.