Photograph Source: Equipo Kast – CC BY 4.0

On 14 December, the predictable happened: José Antonio Kast, the candidate of the far-right Republican Party, prevailed over Jeannette Jara of the Communist Party of Chile by 58.16 percent to 41.84 percent. Kast ran as the candidate of the Cambio por Chile (Change for Chile) platform and was backed by all the parties of the traditional right and the centre-right. Jara, on the other hand, was the candidate of Unidad por Chile (Unity for Chile), which comprised the parties of the centre-left, including the bloc of Chile’s current president, Gabriel Boric, the Frente Amplio or Broad Front.

In the first round of the election, Jara had been the lead candidate with 26.58 percent of the vote, while Kast won 23.92 percent. But this was misleading. The two right-wing candidates who immediately endorsed Kast, Johannes Kaiser (with 13.94 percent) and Evelyn Matthei (with 12.46 percent), provided him with an arithmetical advantage of 50.32 percent. The question for Jara was whether she could surpass 30 percent. That she ended up with over 40 percent is itself a remarkable achievement. It is not easy for the Chilean population, marinated in anti-communism for several generations (particularly during the military dictatorship from 1973 to 1990), to consider voting a Communist into the presidential palace, even if her opponent is a man of the extreme right.

Kast’s arrival in La Moneda, the presidential palace, is part of the Angry Tide that has been sweeping Latin America from El Salvador to Argentina. His victory is not entirely unique. It follows the collapse of the liberal agenda that tried to maintain rigid economic austerity policies alongside limited social programmes; and it is the result of the left’s failure to build a strong agenda to fulfil the demands of the social uprisings that have punctually erupted against austerity and hierarchy.

The Child of the Dictatorship

José Antonio Kast is a product of Chile’s long shadow, where the unresolved legacies of the military dictatorship seep into the present. Born in 1966 to a German immigrant family, Kast emerged from the conservative heartlands of Chilean politics, first as a member of the Independent Democratic Union, the party most faithfully aligned with Augusto........

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