RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – “If Pinochet were still alive, he would vote for me.” José Antonio Kast is a familiar face in Chilean politics, and his statements continue to cause a stir. The lawyer, who has been considered the main point of reference for the extreme right for several years, is currently running for president for the second time, trying to surpass the 8% he achieved in the 2017 elections, always running with his most famous slogans: exacerbation of neoliberalism, an anti-immigration discourse, and his opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage.
Despite a slow start in early polls, today’s Republican Party chairman’s position is expectant after recovering and positioning himself in a surprising second place. According to the Criteria poll released this week, Kast gained nine percentage points over the previous month, garnering 17% of the vote. He thus displaced center-right candidate Sebastian Sichel from second place, who came in at 15%.
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In the poll, conducted between October 1 and 5, Gabriel Boric, the representative of the illiberal left, is still considered the main favorite to win the November 21 elections, set for December 19. The former student leader leads the poll with 26% of voting intentions, while the other candidate of the left, Yasna Provoste, former minister of Michelle Bachelet, remains in fourth place, averaging 11%.
One of the main reasons for the rise of Kast is the waning of the option of Sebastián Sichel, who has stagnated after several controversial and unsuccessful attempts to expand toward the center. The most prominent bone of contention has been his admission that he withdrew 10% of his pension funds managed by private administrators, despite his categorical opposition to the policy, which was intended as a means of dealing with the economic crisis caused by the pandemic.
“The dispute is wide open, and within that space, the battle for the leadership of the right is taking place. Expectations are along the lines of seeking a conservative profile like that of José Antonio Kast, or that voters will opt for an independent supported by the right-wing parties but with a more ethereal discourse like Sebastián Sichel,” said Rafael Pizarro, a public policy expert, and researcher at UTEM University.
NATIONALIST AND CONSERVATIVE
On the other hand, local analysts agree that the conservative candidate has taken away from Sichel a vital part of the right-wing electorate, who want to vote more according to “their beliefs,” as Kast himself has pointed out.
It is the same sector that also wants a heavy hand in fighting crime. This traditional family image opposes gender ideology and is less critical of human rights abuses under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. The candidate of the so-called Christian Social Front has himself proposed in his government program the creation of an “international coordination against left-wing radicals” and has advocated militarization of the Araucanía region, which has been strained by the Mapuche conflict.
“After his first candidacy, Kast has traveled the country more than three or four times, so he has done a lot of groundwork to win back his voters, a person with an apparent profile: nationalist, conservative, and who believes in his work and not in the state.
Kast still has room to maneuver, and the current situation has worked in his favor because he has brought to the fore issues such as migration, for which he can also mobilize,” said Alejandro Olivares, a political scientist at the Catholic University of Temuco, who has also studied the profile of the far-right leader’s electorate.
“His international credentials range from Donald Trump to Marine Le Pen to Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, and while he doesn’t display the shocking rhetoric of the latter, Kast repeatedly touches on immigration, public order, and public safety.
His voters undoubtedly have Pinochet roots, but they are also heterogeneous: “There are popular sectors that love order and an affluent, very Catholic sector that is against changing the Constitution and any change,” the scholar added.
This week, less than 25 days before the elections, the campaign has sharpened its tone, and Kast has become embroiled in controversy. He told Gabriel Boric that he represented “all the failed democracies of Latin America” and called for an “urgent investigation” following the leak of the Pandora Papers, which revealed business ties of President Sebastián Piñera in tax havens.
“I see that some people think that everything will remain the same, that we can continue to spend funds that we don’t have, that we can continue to go into debt. And that can last a few years, but they continue with the same policies of raising taxes, restricting foreign trade, nationalizing all natural resources. It’s clear that Chile is going to experience a very sharp economic decline,” said Kast, who has already announced that he will cut corporate taxes by 17% if elected.