Chile Elects Most Conservative President In Three Decades

Chile Elects Most Conservative President in Three Decades Chile Chile elected far-right José Antonio Kast as president Sunday, following an electoral campaign dominated by themes of security, immigration, and crime, in a victory marking the country’s sharpest rightward shift since the end of Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship in 1990, the BBC reported. With almost all ballots counted, Kast, the leader of the Republican Party, won more than 58 percent of the vote in a runoff vote in which his opponent, Communist Party candidate Jeannette Jara, received just over 41 percent, NPR noted. Kast, considered a right-wing hardliner throughout his decades-long political career, was often seen as too extreme. He won over voters, analysts said, who have become increasingly worried about crime and immigration. While Chile is one of the safest countries in Latin America, violent crime has increased in recent years as organized crime groups have taken root, exploiting the country’s porous northern desert borders with coca-producing neighbors Peru and Bolivia. Kast has proposed building a border wall on Chile’s borders, deploying the military to crime-ridden areas, and mass deportations of illegal migrants in the country, many of whom are from Venezuela, according to France 24. The president-elect has also firmly opposed abortion in all cases and spoken against environmental protection policies. He proposed massive spending cuts and pledged a free-market approach to economics to shrink the state and deregulate certain industries, a stance likely to be welcomed by investors. However, his more radical ideas will likely face pushback from Congress. While right-wing parties gained seats in both legislative chambers in the general election in November, most of those gains came from more traditional parties. As a result, the Senate is evenly split between left- and right-wing parties, while the swing vote in the lower chamber rests with the populist People’s Party. The election, the first presidential election in the country since voting became mandatory, was also Kast’s third attempt at the presidency – the last time he lost to leftist President Gabriel Boric in 2021. He will be inaugurated on March 11. His victory is part of a recent regional trend in which voters are tilting right, for example, in Ecuador, El Salvador, Argentina, and Bolivia. Share this story