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Son of Germans, the youngest of ten siblings and father of nine children. Catholic and defender of the legacy of Augusto Pinochet, the former deputy Jose Antonio Kast is now the standard-bearer of the ultra-conservative sector of Chile that he is getting closer to reaching the presidency.
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Although foreign media, and even his country, label him as candidate of the extreme right or the ‘Chilean Bolsonaro’The truth is that Kast is revitalizing the traditional right that no longer feels represented by President Sebastián Piñera or by his candidate, Sebastián Sichel, who continues to drop dramatically in the polls, ahead of the elections on November 21.
From a marginal 7% support at the end of July, closet it has only been rising in the polls, and in the last survey of Plaza Pública-Cadem, the candidate has positioned itself in the first place with 23% of the votes. Although Criteria continues to place him in second place, with 17% support below the leftist Gabriel Boric, it is an increase of 9 points compared to September.
Was it expected that closet surprised like this and that it is one step away from entering the second round? The once predictable Chilean political landscape is now a terrain of uncertainty capitalized by the social protests of 2019 that marked a before and after in the country.
Although the riots exposed social inequality and had as a concrete consequence the referendum for a new Constitution -which is already in the process of being elaborated-, the demonstrations also brought other discontent, many of which have been taken advantage of by closet, whose speech is based on restoring order, ending illegal migration and defending the neoliberal economic model, but which also includes opposition to abortion, equal marriage and the improvement of retirement conditions for the military.
MORE INFORMATION: Chile Elections 2021: How did social turbulence creep into the campaign one month after the presidential elections?
“closet is a candidate who wants to preserve the model, does not want to radicalize it, wants the Constitution to be maintained, neoliberalism to be maintained, and essentially his vocation is aimed at ordering and applying the law in strict terms, with respect to social unrest or what happens in Araucanía [con el conflicto mapuche]”, explains to this newspaper the sociologist Axel Callís, Chilean electoral expert and director of the social research and polling agency Tuinfluyes.com.
Although almost 80% of the population voted in favor of the new Constitution, it must be taken into account that the referendum was 50% absentee. That is, half of the Chileans did not have an opinion on the matter and, it is possible, that many of them have decided to endorse their support for closet in these last weeks.
“What did exist after the 2019 protests was a very violent and problematic later period for Chile, with the desire to channel the conflict into a political and constitutional process. But as some polls have shown, people are getting tired of it. The protests have followed, although much less, but citizen insecurity, violence in the south of the country have increased, as well as an attitude from the constitutional convention that has tried to expand its area of competences, with a very progressive discourse -as the gender or environmental issues – which are super important for many people, but which scares a certain sector, and that is why Kast is drawing support “says Chilean political scientist Robert Funk, academic at the Institute of Public Affairs of the University of Chile.
Callís endorses this: “There is an important part of the population, especially the elderly, who see this climate of social instability with certain fatigue, the issue of looting and public disorder, and who endorse the Piñera government with this lack of control.”
The Bolsonaro of Chile?
closet he is not a newcomer to Chilean politics. On the contrary, he has been a member of the conservative UDI from a very young age, which he resigned in 2016 due to the ‘bacheletist’ turn that began to take the formation known for its closeness to Augusto Pinochet.
“The ‘bacheletismo-aliancista’ was a mistake, because it was saying ‘we are but we are not’. It is the same thing that I claimed from Sebastián Piñera when he said ‘passive accomplices’. And I said: ‘But how, if his ministers participated in the military regime.’ So that’s lack of conviction. That is, we are or we are not. And I am”, Kast opined at the time.
SIGHT: “If Pinochet were alive, he would vote for me”: who is José Antonio Kast, the Chilean far-right who rebounds in the polls?
Thus, the lawyer from the Catholic University – whose father was Pinochet’s minister and president of the Central Bank in 1982 – formed the Republican Party, for which he ran for president in 2017, when he got only 7.93% of the votes. .
This time, closet It is basing its campaign on seven axes stated on its website as follows: “Dare to defend the family; dare to improve your neighborhood; dare to end crime; dare to regionalize Chile, dare to end the abuse; dare to sing the hymn with force and dare to grow with force ”.
“closet has managed to channel all that mix of uncertainties and fears through fairly simple proposals, which are somewhat populist, because they are very simple answers to very complex problems “Callís points out.
Due to his ultra-conservative speech and his position to defend the legacy of the military dictatorship, Kast is being compared to the president of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, who was also a deputy for many years and whom he even visited in 2018, when he was still a candidate.
“closet has made a great effort to get closer to Bolsonaro, to international networks linked to Trump, Vox from Spain and AfD from Germany. But now that he is starting to do well, he is trying to soften the message a bit, but until recently he had no problem identifying with the extreme right ”, explains Funk, who points out: “It is more about a new nationalist-populist right, where the issue of globalism, migration and the denial of global warming are very present.”
Callís prefers not to compare him with Bolsonaro: “In strict and academic terms it is not the same. closet He is more complex, he is not as crude as Bolsonaro, he is not a person who has shown misogynistic aspects because he takes great care of that. I would say that it is a sophisticated version of the extreme right, more similar to what Vox is in Spain or the National Front in France ”.
A) Yes, closet It would not only represent the Chilean extreme right, but a popular right that has been badly hit by crime, protests and migration.
The controversial ditch
Precisely, on the immigration issue, Kast has had one of the most controversial proposals. It is not about a wall, Trump style, but about a ditch on the border with Bolivia that contains illegal migration, especially that of Venezuela and Haiti, which has become one of the problems of greatest concern to Chileans.
Many of the migrants cross the border on foot through Bolivia, through the arid Atacameño desert.
“If you make a trench three meters deep, with fences so that nobody falls inside, it is feasible and quite economical”, he pointed closet in one of the debates. “It is cheaper than repatriation flights”.
However, the trench already exists. In fact, excavations began during the second government of Michelle Bachelet in the Colchane area to control the smuggling and theft of vehicles. However, under the government of Sebastián Piñera the project was not concluded.
“It is a third world version of Trump’s wall and an important group of the extreme right and voters from popular areas tend to believe that this is a valid presidential option”, says Callís.
With this scenario, uncertainty is the keyword. Yes closet manages to go to the second round and, eventually, wins the elections, the scenario could become more polarized in the country. “Kast has an aggressive, ideological discourse and extremes feed. So it is very likely that a Kast victory will mean more protests in the streets. In addition, it will have a very fragmented Congress and will face a constitutional convention that will not be happy with its triumph ”, explains Funk.
There is still almost a month left to know what will happen in the southern neighbor, but in the meantime its most unexpected candidate continues to gather adherents and divide the waters.
- Chile elections 2021: Sebastián Sichel says he aspires to the Presidency to “build a liberal identity of the center”
- Chile: far-right candidate José Antonio Kast takes hold in presidential polls
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