Chile’s next President is hardliner José Antonio Kast, marking the latest conservative shift in South America, where right-wing leaders recently prevailed in national elections in Bolivia and Ecuador, as well as the midterms in Argentina.
The 59-year-old seasoned politician defeated leftist candidate Jeanette Jara in the presidential runoff, winning 58% of the vote. Ms. Jara, Labour Minister under the outgoing President, Gabriel Boric, won 41.84% of the vote. This marked Chile’s first presidential election with mandatory voting and automatic registration of eligible voters.
Chile President-elect calls for end to Maduro ‘dictatorship’
Mr. Kast was born in Santiago in 1966 to German immigrants; his father was a Nazi party member and army lieutenant from Bavaria, who decamped to South America after the Second World War and set up a business in Paine. Mr. Kast has stressed that his father was forced to enlist.
As a law student at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, Mr. Kast was an admirer of General Augusto Pinochet, the military dictator who seized power in a 1973 coup. In 1988, a referendum was held to determine Pinochet’s continuity in power; Mr. Kast campaigned for the yes vote. He said in later years that if Pinochet had been alive,“he would have voted for me”.
