Far-right politician José Antonio Kast wins the Chilean Presidency by a wide margin

Far-rightist José Antonio Kast won this Sunday (December 14) the presidential elections in Chile, defeating leftist Jeannette Jara by a wide margin of almost 20 points, with 57.4% of the votes counted, according to figures from the Electoral Service. The lawyer and former deputy joined the wave of far-right leaders governing in parts of the world and became the first Pinochet supporter since the return to democracy to come to power in Chile. At just 22 years old, when he was a law student at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, Kast campaigned in favor of the continuation of General Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) in television propaganda for the 1988 plebiscite on the continuation of the regime. “If he were alive, he would vote for me,” Kast said four decades later, in 2017, in his first attempt to reach La Moneda, the seat of the Government. The 59-year-old leader of the Republican Party is preparing to implement a neoliberal program of mega-cuts and a firm hand against crime and irregular migration starting next March 11, after winning by a wide margin against the leftist Jeannette Jara. The arrival to power of a defender of the dictatorship is something unprecedented in Chile, but not in the region, as it already happened with Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil or Javier Milei in Argentina.

So far, since the return to democracy, the first and only right-winger to reach the presidency of the Republic of Chile had been the late Sebastián Piñera, who did so in two non-consecutive terms (2010-2014 and 2018-2022), and who voted against the dictator’s permanence.

“Kast is a figure directly linked to Pinochetism. He is heir to its tradition. Furthermore, he is the brother of one of Pinochet’s main ministers and president of the Central Bank, Miguel Kast, who remains a kind of guru for the most neoliberal right,” Octavio Avendaño, from the University of Chile, told EFE.