From the US to Hungary to Argentina, rightwing leaders are praising José Antonio Kast’s win in Chile’s presidential race
José Antonio Kast’s victory in Chile’s presidential election has been widely praised by leaders of the global right, with congratulations coming from the US secretary of state Marco Rubio, Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, Argentina’s Javier Milei and X’s Elon Musk.
The son of a Nazi party member, a father of nine and a staunch Catholic known for opposing abortion and same-sex marriage, Kast won 58.16% of the vote in the runoff – more than 2m votes than the leftist Jeannette Jara, a former labour minister under the current president, Gabriel Boric.
Kast was running for the third time and had built his campaign on the claim that rising migration over the past decade had fuelled a rise in crime.
Two of his flagship promises were directly inspired by the policies of Donald Trump: the expulsion of about 330,000 undocumented migrants – most of them Venezuelan – and the construction of detention centres and 5-metre-high walls, electric fences, 3-metre-deep trenches and an increased military presence along the border.
