Far-rightist Kast redesigns his program to attract voters from the center in Chile

The far-right candidate for the presidency Chile, Jose Antonio Kast, presented on Tuesday a new electoral program, with changes in the most controversial issues with a view to attracting voters from the center in the December 19 ballot, in which he faces the leftist Gabriel Boric.

“We said that the program was not set in stone,” Kast said to the press in the official presentation for the second round of his government plan that seeks to capture the vote of the electorate that was orphaned of political representation between the two candidates from opposite poles .

The 55-year-old lawyer, candidate for the Republican Party and winner in the first round (27.9%), reformulated the original version of his program and softened some of the most criticized proposals on social and economic issues.

Among the points that he retouched, there is a mention of the reduction of the State without referring to percentages or giving numbers, as the first version of the program did; The phrase “we will repeal the law that makes abortion possible, passed during the government of former President Bachelet,” disappears, and the proposal of “military endowments” for border control with neighboring countries (Bolivia, Peru and Argentina) is eliminated.

Several of these adjustments were suggested by parties and leaders of the center-right and the liberal right who have given their support after the first round of November 21.

– Retouching –

The new program does not include proposals that generated strong criticism, such as the repeal of the abortion law, approved in Chile in 2017 and which allows the interruption of pregnancy in three causes: vital risk of the woman, fetal unfeasibility and rape.

“Circumstances are changing” throughout the campaign, said the ultra-conservative candidate, father of nine children and defender of the figure of the dictator Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).

Certain points of his program earned him criticism from society. Kast was accused of being chauvinistic for wanting to eliminate the Ministry of Women -point 48-, of homophobic for opposing the marriage of people of the same sex -point 249-, of xenophobic after announcing the construction of a ditch in the desert to prevent entry irregular of migrants -point 822- and fascist due to his proposal of “international anti-radical coordination of the left” -point 33-.

The candidate modified the proposal to eliminate the Ministry of Women and merge it with another. “It was a mistake to say that we want to merge the Ministry of Women with others, but the north remains the same, more rights and resources for women in all areas,” Kast said on Tuesday.

Regarding irregular migration, the candidate maintains the proposal to create a ditch on the border with Bolivia, through which thousands of irregular migrants, most of them Venezuelans, have crossed walking since the end of 2020, as well as to create a “temporary military camp in the Colchane area ”, epicenter of the migratory crisis in Chile.

The program also maintains that it “requires Bolivia, Peru” -without mentioning Argentina as in its original version-, to reinforce borders and “take charge of the caravans of illegal migrants that come from their territories and end up in Chile for their negligence and lack of control ”.

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