Report
Kast wins easily, bringing Pinochet 2.0 to Chile
Kast, the son of a Nazi, will be the first president to have voted in favor of Pinochet in the historic 1988 referendum that ended the military regime.
It didn’t make a difference to stand up against repression, end up in jail, lose one’s sight or even one’s life. Six years after the estallido social (“social outbreak”), and five years after the referendum in which almost 80% of voters voted to scrap Pinochet’s Constitution (only to decide two years later to reject the alternative), the Pinochetist extreme right has won the Chilean presidency for the first time since the end of the dictatorship. “Chile despertó” (“Chile has awakened”), people shouted in the streets during those days. But it didn’t take long for it to fall back asleep.
The outcome of the presidential election runoff was exactly as predicted by the polls: José Antonio Kast, the candidate of the Republican Party, won 58.2% of the vote (making him the president who earned the most votes in the country’s history), against 41.7% for Jeannette Jara, the candidate of Unidad por Chile. This is the worst result for the progressive forces since the return of democracy.
Shortly after midnight CET, outgoing President Gabriel Boric congratulated the winner (Jara had already done so before him). “You too will know what the loneliness of power means,” he reportedly told Kast. It was a cordial phone call, just like the one four years ago when the roles were reversed. Kast was also willing to give credit to his defeated opponent, acknowledging her “courage” and assuring her that Chile “will not move forward divided.” In short, nothing could be further from Milei’s style.
However, behind those conciliatory tones, there is nothing reassuring. Kast, the son of a Nazi, will be the first president to have voted in favor of Pinochet in the historic 1988 referendum that ended the military regime, and to have always proudly claimed the latter’s legacy: if the dictator had been alive, he said in 2017, he would have voted for him. Not even the late Sebastián Piñera – with all his misdeeds, starting with the systematic and generalized human rights violations during the social uprising – went that far.
“It’s not the 30 pesos, it’s the 30 years,” was the slogan that was adopted in 2019, in reference, on one hand, to yet another increase in the cost of public transport and, on the other, to the three decades since the end of the dictatorship marked by the same social injustice. And while Boric has governed as if everything could be reduced to just the “30 pesos,” Kast will certainly go much further: his four-year term promises to be even tougher than those 30 years. And in the next 18 months – as the president-elect has assured – those proverbial 30 pesos will become $6.5 billion in cuts.
Opposed to abortion and same-sex marriage, and in favor of initiatives such as eliminating the Ministry for Women, the Catholic Kast – father of nine children – has preferred to focus on the issues most dear to an electorate concerned about the rise in the murder rate, which has actually doubled in the last ten years: order and security, the fight against organized crime and the mass expulsion of irregular immigrants, including through the construction of border walls and Bukele-style maximum-security prisons. It is no coincidence that according to the Gallup Global Safety Report 2025, Chile is – after Ecuador – the Latin American country where the population feels least safe, even though the real situation there is certainly less critical than elsewhere.
Many have rejoiced at Kast’s victory. While Javier Milei expressed “enormous joy” at his “overwhelming triumph,” Giorgia Meloni’s satisfaction was no less obvious: she was certain that with the “great success” of her “friend,” bilateral relations between Italy and Chile “will become even stronger, starting with issues such as economic cooperation and the fight against irregular immigration.” Matteo Salvini praised him as an ally in the “common battles” for “freedom, identity, security.” Meanwhile, congratulations also arrived from the U.S. via Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who stated: “Under Kast's leadership, we are confident Chile will advance shared priorities to include strengthening public security, ending illegal immigration, and revitalizing our commercial relationship” – thus, another point scored by the Trump administration.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/cile-kast-stravince-alla-moneda-e-arrivato-il-pinochetismo-2-0 on 2025-12-16