Chile: A Sharp Turn to the Right Under José Antonio Kast, An Admirer of General Augusto Pinochet
José Antonio Kast, the ultraconservative leader of the Republican Party (Partido Republicano), won Chile’s presidential election runoff on 14 December 2025 with 58.16% of the vote, to 41.84% for Chilean Communist Party candidate Jeannette Jara, Minister of Labour from 2022 to 2025 under outgoing President Gabriel Boric. Kast led by 16.6 percentage points, claiming victory in all sixteen regions of Chile and in 314 of its 346 municipalities. Kast and Jara had advanced to the run-off following the first round of voting on 16 November, which Jara won with 26.85% of the vote, to 23.92% for Kast. The votes gained by the other right-wing candidates in the first round significantly outnumbered those captured by left-wing contenders, allowing for a comfortable Kast victory through their redistribution in the decisive second round.
This was the first presidential election with compulsory voting in Chile since 2012. A constitutional amendment in 2022 restored obligatory voting, with automatic registration for voters aged over 18 and fines for those who fail to vote. Kast succeeded at his third attempt, having lost to former President Sebastián Piñera in the first round of the 2017 elections, with just 7.9% of the vote, and then to Gabriel Boric in the 2021 runoff. Kast’s victory was in keeping with a trend whereby, since 2010, Chile has alternated between left-wing and right-wing governments. His victory was particularly well-received by like-minded politicians, including U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, President Javier Milei of neighbouring Argentina, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni of Italy, and the leader of Spain’s Vox party, Santiago Abascal.
Kast will take office on 11 March 2026, when he moves into the Palacio de la Moneda in the capital city of Santiago. His campaign targeted organised crime, in a country which is actually one of the safest in Latin America, and large-scale illegal immigration, of as many as 360,000 people-mainly from Venezuela, Colombia, and Haiti. Kast promised emergency crime-fighting powers for the military and police to combat rising violence, the detention and deportation of undocumented migrants, and the construction of a barrier along Chile’s northern desert border with Peru and Bolivia. This border is to be fortified with electrified fences, five-metre-high walls, and three-metre-deep trenches. He is all for a smaller State and plans massive cuts in public spending, to the tune of $6 billion over a three-year period. Kast could even undo the economic reforms of the previous regime, which include a 40-hour working week, a higher minimum wage, and larger employer contributions to pensions.
Kast is the youngest son of German parents who arrived in Chile in the 1950s and eventually built up a nationwide chain of restaurants. The Associated Press revealed in 2021 that his father had joined the Nazi Party in September 1942 (membership number 9271831), and served in the Wehrmacht during the Second World War. There has never been any suggestion that the elder Kast was involved in any war crimes. One of the newly-elected President’s brothers, Michael, was himself a minister and president of the Central Bank during the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship.
President-Elect Kast is a devout Catholic-married for 34 years, with nine children. His conservative views include his opposition to abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, and same-sex marriages. A lawyer by profession, he left the right-wing Independent Democratic Union (Unión Demócrata Independiente) in 2016, founding his own ultraconservative party in 2019. He is an admirer of General Augusto Pinochet, whose 17-year dictatorial rule over Chile was plagued by human rights abuses, including the imprisonment, torture, and unexplained “disappearances” of opponents. During Pinochet’s time in charge, Chile became the scene of a neoliberal economic experiment, influenced by American economists Milton Friedman and Arnold Harberger from the University of Chicago, and overseen by Chilean economists who were nicknamed the “Chicago Boys.” Market liberalisation, fiscal stabilisation, and welfare reform led to economic growth between 1978 and 1981, only to be followed by a foreign debt crisis, rising inflation, massive capital outflows, bank collapses, and deep recession in 1982-1983, requiring an $850 million IMF bailout in 1985. The return of democracy in 1990, the adoption of more pragmatic economic policies, fiscal discipline, and an export-led growth strategy centred on copper, lithium, and agricultural products has led to sustained economic growth, albeit at a slower pace since 2014. Chile’s impressive economic recovery led to its admission to the OECD in May 2010 as its first South American member.
President-elect Kast is about to inherit one of the most prosperous nations in South America, and also one of the most deeply polarised politically. As in many wealthier countries, immigration from poorer states has been linked to rising violent crime, and to organised drug and human trafficking. Immigrants, legal and otherwise, currently account for 10% of Chile’s population. Kast will be expected to keep his promises to restore law and order, to repatriate undocumented migrants, and to lift Chile out of economic slowdown. Removing economic inequality seems more of a left-wing concern. The new President may, however, find himself somewhat constrained, when he assumes power, by the lack of a commanding majority in the 155-member Chamber of Deputies (Cámara de Diputados) and the 50-member Senate (Senado), following the congressional elections of 16 November 2025. Although right-wing parties dominate both houses of the bicameral National Congress, they represent a wider spectrum of political opinion than that of Kast’s Republican Party. All that remains for us now is to await the next left-to-right political transition in Chile on 11 March 2026.
Ashis Banerjee