Chilean women, wary of rightist, may decide president’s race
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A follower of Chile's presidential candidate Jose Antonio Kast from the Partido Republicano, holds campaign flags during a rally in Santiago, Chile, Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2021. Chile votes in the runoff election on Dec. 19. (AP PhotoMatias Delacroix)
SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — When Chileans went to the polls last month, Elizabeth Padilla, like more than half of eligible voters in the South American country, stayed home, not feeling represented by any of the seven candidates on the ballot.
But her apathy suddenly lifted when a politician she feared, José Antonio Kast finished first. In recent days, as Chileans gear up for a runoff pitting the far-right candidate against leftist lawmaker Gabriel Boric, the 45-year-old artist has been hanging campaign posters in her downtown Santiago neighborhood and warning friends of what she sees as a serious threat to women if Kast wins.
“We are four sisters and I have three nieces. I’m very worried about what could happen,” said Padilla, who has spent many a sleepless night contemplating a return of “fascism” in a country that until 1990 was governed by a military dictator, Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who Kast has defended. “The truth is I didn’t know there were so many people who think like this.”
Presidential candidate Gabriel Boric, of the Apruebo Dignidad coalition party, holds a gas tank covered by the Spanish message "Gas at a fair price" as he campaigns in Vina del Mar, Chile, Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2021. Chile heads to a presidential runoff on Dec. 19. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)
It’s a sentiment shared widely by Chilean women, especially younger urban professionals, who are shaping up to be the clincher in a tight race between political extremes battling for Chile’s future.
Kast, the 55-year-old founder of the fledgling Republican Party, secured 28% of the vote on Nov. 21, edging out Boric by two points. Historically, every candidate in Chile who led in the first round of balloting went on to prevail in the head-to-head runoff.
Emerging from dictatorship, Chilean women voted in larger numbers and favored conservative candidates more consistently than their male compatriots, perhaps fearing a return of the turmoil seen during the 1970-1973 rule of the toppled socialist President Salvador Allende, when women, then mostly stuck in the kitchen, banged on pots and pans to protest food shortages.
But the gender gap abruptly closed with the election in 2005 of leftist Michelle Bachelet, which triggered a “pink wave” of presidential victories for women across the region.
Several opinion polls indicate that this time women are flocking in droves to Boric — a millennial who uses non-binary pronouns from the stump — as he capitalizes on Kast’s long record of sexist comments and policy goals seen as out of step with fast changing societal norms.
“Don’t vote for the Nazi. No, no, no,” a few thousand women shouted Wednesday at boisterous feminist rally in downtown Santiago against Kast, the son of a German immigrant who was recently revealed to be a card-carrying member of Adolf Hitler’s political party.
Giovanna Roa, who was in attendance, said that a Kast victory would be a major setback for women.
The two candidates right wing Kast (l), socialist Boric (r)
“Kast explicitly wants to move us back to a place we already left behind,” said the 34-year-old Roa, a member of the convention redrafting Pinochet’s constitution — the first such institution in the world where gender parity is mandatory. “He wants us hidden and out of the public arena.”
Chile, despite its reputation as one of Latin America’s most socially conservative countries, has always had a combative feminist movement that in recent years has made great strides passing laws that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, loosen abortion restrictions and boost the representation of women in politics.
One sign of its strength is the feminist anthem “A Rapist in Your Path,” which has been adopted by activists across the world to denounce violence against women since first being performed during a wave of anti-government protests in 2019.
The rise of Kast, in the eyes of his critics, is a backlash against those gains and the emergence in Chile of a kind of identity politics that has roiled democracies across the world.
Polls show that he has made inroads with middle-class and rural voters who fear that Boric — a former student protest leader who doesn’t shy away from vindicating Allende — would disrupt three decades of economic and political stability that has made Chile the envy of many in Latin America.
Kast, who has donned Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” hat in television interviews, has recently started to walk back some of his past views to shore up support among women.
But courting the key voting bloc was made harder when a video surfaced days after the first round in which a key supporter, YouTuber-turned-congressman-elect Johannes Kaiser, can be heard mocking voting rights for women — which dates to 1949 — if its end result is that “schizophrenic” women keep supporting parties that welcome immigrants who threaten to rape women when they go jogging in the park.
As a lawmaker in 2004, Kast voted against legislation legalizing divorce — a position he reaffirmed as recently as 2010. In an interview during the campaign he said it was no longer an issue.
In a 2018 newspaper column, he attacked Chile’s most famous actress, Daniela Vega, referring to the transgender star of the Academy Award-winning film “A Fantastic Woman” as a man. His column opposed a bill — later passed — allowing individuals to select their gender identity on legal documents.
“I wouldn’t write (the newspaper column) in the same terms,” he said in a televised debate this week, adding that he would respect the existing legislation.
The campaign platform he presented ahead of the first round of voting opposes same-sex marriage — which Chile’s congress approved this month by a wide majority — and vows to tighten Chile’s already restrictive abortion laws, which allows a woman to terminate pregnancy only in the case of rape, when the fetus won’t survive or the mother’s health is at risk.
The 204-page document instead highlights “family-focused” policies such as marriage courses, incentives to have babies and health care subsidies for married women. The platform also calls for the elimination of the Ministry of Women — a position he has since abandoned.
“I want to confess that we made a mistake,” said Kast, surrounded by female supporters, at a campaign rally this month highlighting policies he said would promote women. “We ask for forgiveness. We changed positions and clearly we aren’t only going to keep the Ministry of Women but we are going to strengthen it.”
In sharp contrast, the 35-year-old Boric seems to embrace his portrayal by the far right as Chile’s first “woke” presidential candidate.
On the stump, he addresses supporters using gender-neutral terms popular with only a handful of fellow Chilean millennials and not found in traditional Spanish grammar. His unmarried partner, a fellow activist, said she’s not interested in serving as first lady, a traditional role she believes Chile has outlived.
Unlike Kast, Boric also refused to appear on the online “Bad Boys” program hosted by the surprise third place finisher, Franco Parisi, who garnered more than 13% of first round votes. In rejecting the invitation, Boric cited Parisi’s large child-support debt to his ex wife.
“Electorally it would be profitable. … However I believe that in elections as in life one has to be guided by principles,” he said.
Recent polls show that women and young voters overwhelmingly favor Boric, sometimes by as much as 20 points.
“In a tight race, a spike in votes from young women, who tend to skew more left wing and feel threatened by Kast’s conservative discourse, may make a big difference,” said Marcela Rios, a political scientist at the United Nations Development Program in Chile who has focused on gender issues. “It all depends on turnout.”
But outside the capital, where traditional gender roles have changed less, it’s unclear how deep support for Boric really is among women.
To be sure, Boric has not been exempt of criticism for his past behavior toward woman.
In July, following Boric’s victory in a primary, a fellow activist denounced what she said were “acts of violence” involving the leftist standard bearer in 2012, when he headed the student union at the University of Chile. It’s unclear what transpired but Boric, who she said acted like a “harassing pig,” recently apologized to the woman, who in turn has accused Kast of “ unscrupulous and violent ” promotion of the incident.
Boric’s mother says she’s partly to blame for any of her son’s lingering machismo.
“I raised him with basically a sexist mentality ... because that’s how I was taught too,” María Soledad Font said in an interview her home in southern Chile.
But over time, after Boric traveled to Santiago for college and expanded his horizons, he began to shed what she called the “old Gabriel.”
”He made it a goal to listen and understand,” said Font, showing her son’s childhood bedroom — replete with framed soccer jerseys, a photo of Cuban guerrilla leader Ernesto “Che” Guevara and spray-painted slogans from the French Revolution. “That’s when he began to see (men and women) are equal in values and talents.”
___
Goodman reported from Miami. Claudio Monge contributed to this report from Punta Arenas, Chile.
By PATRICIA LUNA and JOSHUA GOODMAN
1 of 5
A follower of Chile's presidential candidate Jose Antonio Kast from the Partido Republicano, holds campaign flags during a rally in Santiago, Chile, Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2021. Chile votes in the runoff election on Dec. 19. (AP PhotoMatias Delacroix)
SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — When Chileans went to the polls last month, Elizabeth Padilla, like more than half of eligible voters in the South American country, stayed home, not feeling represented by any of the seven candidates on the ballot.
But her apathy suddenly lifted when a politician she feared, José Antonio Kast finished first. In recent days, as Chileans gear up for a runoff pitting the far-right candidate against leftist lawmaker Gabriel Boric, the 45-year-old artist has been hanging campaign posters in her downtown Santiago neighborhood and warning friends of what she sees as a serious threat to women if Kast wins.
“We are four sisters and I have three nieces. I’m very worried about what could happen,” said Padilla, who has spent many a sleepless night contemplating a return of “fascism” in a country that until 1990 was governed by a military dictator, Gen. Augusto Pinochet, who Kast has defended. “The truth is I didn’t know there were so many people who think like this.”
Presidential candidate Gabriel Boric, of the Apruebo Dignidad coalition party, holds a gas tank covered by the Spanish message "Gas at a fair price" as he campaigns in Vina del Mar, Chile, Wednesday, Dec. 15, 2021. Chile heads to a presidential runoff on Dec. 19. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix)
Kast, the 55-year-old founder of the fledgling Republican Party, secured 28% of the vote on Nov. 21, edging out Boric by two points. Historically, every candidate in Chile who led in the first round of balloting went on to prevail in the head-to-head runoff.
Emerging from dictatorship, Chilean women voted in larger numbers and favored conservative candidates more consistently than their male compatriots, perhaps fearing a return of the turmoil seen during the 1970-1973 rule of the toppled socialist President Salvador Allende, when women, then mostly stuck in the kitchen, banged on pots and pans to protest food shortages.
But the gender gap abruptly closed with the election in 2005 of leftist Michelle Bachelet, which triggered a “pink wave” of presidential victories for women across the region.
Several opinion polls indicate that this time women are flocking in droves to Boric — a millennial who uses non-binary pronouns from the stump — as he capitalizes on Kast’s long record of sexist comments and policy goals seen as out of step with fast changing societal norms.
“Don’t vote for the Nazi. No, no, no,” a few thousand women shouted Wednesday at boisterous feminist rally in downtown Santiago against Kast, the son of a German immigrant who was recently revealed to be a card-carrying member of Adolf Hitler’s political party.
Giovanna Roa, who was in attendance, said that a Kast victory would be a major setback for women.
The two candidates right wing Kast (l), socialist Boric (r)
“Kast explicitly wants to move us back to a place we already left behind,” said the 34-year-old Roa, a member of the convention redrafting Pinochet’s constitution — the first such institution in the world where gender parity is mandatory. “He wants us hidden and out of the public arena.”
Chile, despite its reputation as one of Latin America’s most socially conservative countries, has always had a combative feminist movement that in recent years has made great strides passing laws that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation, loosen abortion restrictions and boost the representation of women in politics.
One sign of its strength is the feminist anthem “A Rapist in Your Path,” which has been adopted by activists across the world to denounce violence against women since first being performed during a wave of anti-government protests in 2019.
The rise of Kast, in the eyes of his critics, is a backlash against those gains and the emergence in Chile of a kind of identity politics that has roiled democracies across the world.
Polls show that he has made inroads with middle-class and rural voters who fear that Boric — a former student protest leader who doesn’t shy away from vindicating Allende — would disrupt three decades of economic and political stability that has made Chile the envy of many in Latin America.
Kast, who has donned Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” hat in television interviews, has recently started to walk back some of his past views to shore up support among women.
But courting the key voting bloc was made harder when a video surfaced days after the first round in which a key supporter, YouTuber-turned-congressman-elect Johannes Kaiser, can be heard mocking voting rights for women — which dates to 1949 — if its end result is that “schizophrenic” women keep supporting parties that welcome immigrants who threaten to rape women when they go jogging in the park.
As a lawmaker in 2004, Kast voted against legislation legalizing divorce — a position he reaffirmed as recently as 2010. In an interview during the campaign he said it was no longer an issue.
In a 2018 newspaper column, he attacked Chile’s most famous actress, Daniela Vega, referring to the transgender star of the Academy Award-winning film “A Fantastic Woman” as a man. His column opposed a bill — later passed — allowing individuals to select their gender identity on legal documents.
“I wouldn’t write (the newspaper column) in the same terms,” he said in a televised debate this week, adding that he would respect the existing legislation.
The campaign platform he presented ahead of the first round of voting opposes same-sex marriage — which Chile’s congress approved this month by a wide majority — and vows to tighten Chile’s already restrictive abortion laws, which allows a woman to terminate pregnancy only in the case of rape, when the fetus won’t survive or the mother’s health is at risk.
The 204-page document instead highlights “family-focused” policies such as marriage courses, incentives to have babies and health care subsidies for married women. The platform also calls for the elimination of the Ministry of Women — a position he has since abandoned.
“I want to confess that we made a mistake,” said Kast, surrounded by female supporters, at a campaign rally this month highlighting policies he said would promote women. “We ask for forgiveness. We changed positions and clearly we aren’t only going to keep the Ministry of Women but we are going to strengthen it.”
In sharp contrast, the 35-year-old Boric seems to embrace his portrayal by the far right as Chile’s first “woke” presidential candidate.
On the stump, he addresses supporters using gender-neutral terms popular with only a handful of fellow Chilean millennials and not found in traditional Spanish grammar. His unmarried partner, a fellow activist, said she’s not interested in serving as first lady, a traditional role she believes Chile has outlived.
Unlike Kast, Boric also refused to appear on the online “Bad Boys” program hosted by the surprise third place finisher, Franco Parisi, who garnered more than 13% of first round votes. In rejecting the invitation, Boric cited Parisi’s large child-support debt to his ex wife.
“Electorally it would be profitable. … However I believe that in elections as in life one has to be guided by principles,” he said.
Recent polls show that women and young voters overwhelmingly favor Boric, sometimes by as much as 20 points.
“In a tight race, a spike in votes from young women, who tend to skew more left wing and feel threatened by Kast’s conservative discourse, may make a big difference,” said Marcela Rios, a political scientist at the United Nations Development Program in Chile who has focused on gender issues. “It all depends on turnout.”
But outside the capital, where traditional gender roles have changed less, it’s unclear how deep support for Boric really is among women.
To be sure, Boric has not been exempt of criticism for his past behavior toward woman.
In July, following Boric’s victory in a primary, a fellow activist denounced what she said were “acts of violence” involving the leftist standard bearer in 2012, when he headed the student union at the University of Chile. It’s unclear what transpired but Boric, who she said acted like a “harassing pig,” recently apologized to the woman, who in turn has accused Kast of “ unscrupulous and violent ” promotion of the incident.
Boric’s mother says she’s partly to blame for any of her son’s lingering machismo.
“I raised him with basically a sexist mentality ... because that’s how I was taught too,” María Soledad Font said in an interview her home in southern Chile.
But over time, after Boric traveled to Santiago for college and expanded his horizons, he began to shed what she called the “old Gabriel.”
”He made it a goal to listen and understand,” said Font, showing her son’s childhood bedroom — replete with framed soccer jerseys, a photo of Cuban guerrilla leader Ernesto “Che” Guevara and spray-painted slogans from the French Revolution. “That’s when he began to see (men and women) are equal in values and talents.”
___
Goodman reported from Miami. Claudio Monge contributed to this report from Punta Arenas, Chile.
‘Very worrying’: is a far-right radical about to take over in Chile?
As election run-off looms, José Antonio Kast’s opponents sound the alarm
All of the progress we have made in terms of women’s rights, inclusion and human rights will be affected if Kast wins on SundayGaby Riquelme
“Communism is advancing”, Kast, who is 55, warned earlier this year. “Chile needs a political alternative that seeks to recover … the freedom we have lost.”
Boric, meanwhile, has promised “hope will prevail over fear” – a carbon copy of the pledge the leftist Brazilian Fernando Haddad made before losing to Bolsonaro in October 2018.
In the weeks since last month’s first-round vote, which he narrowly won, Kast has tried to soften his tone and play down his links to Bolsonaro in an apparent bid to attract moderate voters.
During the final presidential debate on Monday he rejected claims he was homophobic, claiming that several same-sex couples had attended his daughter’s wedding.
But Kast has not always been so coy.
On 18 October 2018, 10 days before Bolsonaro won power, the Chilean flew to Rio to meet Brazil’s future president. “Jair Bolsonaro represents the hope of freedom, security, development and social justice in a Brazil that was destroyed by the left,” Kast tweeted alongside a photograph of him delivering a bright red Chile football shirt. The jersey had been personalized with the number 17, then the symbol of Bolsonaro’s far-right candidacy.
What it shows is that Kast is part of a larger story of international networks … and a movement that is basically trying to be disruptiveRobert Funk
The two men stayed in touch after Bolsonaro took power, with the Brazilian newspaper O Globo recently revealing that a key connection was the German-Chilean businessman Sven von Storch. He is the husband of Beatrix von Storch, the deputy leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and granddaughter of Hitler’s finance minister.
In December 2018, Kast gave a keynote speech at a conservative congress organized by Bolsonaro’s congressman son, Eduardo, in the Brazilian border city of Foz do Iguaçu.
He used part of his address to recast Augusto Pinochet’s September 1973 overthrow of Chile’s socialist leader Salvador Allende, just as Bolsonaro has sought to rewrite the history of the Brazilian military dictatorship.
“Allende was overthrown by the people,” insisted Kast who has praised Pinochet’s “economic legacy”. “We have to rewrite history from our point of view,” he told delegates.
After Kast’s first-round victory last month, Eduardo – Steve Bannon’s representative in Latin America – wished the Chilean candidate luck.
As election run-off looms, José Antonio Kast’s opponents sound the alarm
The ultra-conservative presidential candidate, José Antonio Kast, participates in an event. Photograph: Elvis Gonzalez/EPA
Tom Phillips and John Bartlett in Rancagua
Thu 16 Dec 2021
Tom Phillips and John Bartlett in Rancagua
Thu 16 Dec 2021
María Irene Campos was a woman on a mission.
“I want to send the message that Chile will never again be communist,” the 74-year-old retiree proclaimed as she hit the streets last Friday to catch a glimpse of the man she believes can save her South American homeland from such a fate.
That man is José Antonio Kast – an ultra-conservative lawyer and father of nine, who some call Chile’s answer to Brazil’s radical leader, Jair Bolsonaro – and who is now just one step away from becoming his country’s next president.
Chile far-right candidate rides anti-migrant wave in presidential poll
Fifteen million Chileans will head to the polls on Sunday for the second, decisive round of Chile’s presidential election to choose between the far-right politician and his leftist rival, Gabriel Boric, who appears to hold a slender lead.
“He seems like a good person to me – somebody with conviction,” said Susana Guajardo, 61, another Kast supporter who had come to see the candidate during a campaign visit to Rancagua, a quiet city 50 miles south of Chile’s capital, Santiago.
But the prospect of a four-year Kast presidency has horrified many in Chile and across the region and fueled fears that one of South America’s most prosperous and stable democracies could be on the verge of being captured by Steve Bannon-style extremists.
“All of the progress we have made in terms of women’s rights, inclusion and human rights will be affected if Kast wins on Sunday,” warned Gaby Riquelme, a 35-year-old who has spent recent weeks pamphleting for Boric.
Riquelme feared Kast, whose Germany-born father was recently revealed to have been a member of the Nazi party, risked plunging Chile into “instability and disorder” by opposing the grassroots movement battling to address its many social problems after 2019’s historic protests.
“Kast will undoubtedly be a step backwards,” she said of the fervent Catholic who vehemently opposes same-sex marriage, recently legalized by Chile’s parliament.
On Tuesday, Chile’s moderate former president Michelle Bachelet threw her weight behind Boric, telling Chileans they faced a “fundamental” choice and urging them to back a leader who could lead the country “down the path of progress for all”.
Chile’s 2021 race has uncanny and disturbing echoes of the profoundly polarized 2018 vote that saw Jair Bolsonaro – like Kast long viewed as a political aberration – gain control of Latin America’s largest democracy.
While a more graceful orator than his notoriously blunt Brazilian counterpart, Kast has hoisted almost identical banners including law and order, opposition to “gender ideology” and a flag-waving antipathy toward the left and its alleged bid to deny citizens their “freedom”.
“I want to send the message that Chile will never again be communist,” the 74-year-old retiree proclaimed as she hit the streets last Friday to catch a glimpse of the man she believes can save her South American homeland from such a fate.
That man is José Antonio Kast – an ultra-conservative lawyer and father of nine, who some call Chile’s answer to Brazil’s radical leader, Jair Bolsonaro – and who is now just one step away from becoming his country’s next president.
Chile far-right candidate rides anti-migrant wave in presidential poll
Fifteen million Chileans will head to the polls on Sunday for the second, decisive round of Chile’s presidential election to choose between the far-right politician and his leftist rival, Gabriel Boric, who appears to hold a slender lead.
“He seems like a good person to me – somebody with conviction,” said Susana Guajardo, 61, another Kast supporter who had come to see the candidate during a campaign visit to Rancagua, a quiet city 50 miles south of Chile’s capital, Santiago.
But the prospect of a four-year Kast presidency has horrified many in Chile and across the region and fueled fears that one of South America’s most prosperous and stable democracies could be on the verge of being captured by Steve Bannon-style extremists.
“All of the progress we have made in terms of women’s rights, inclusion and human rights will be affected if Kast wins on Sunday,” warned Gaby Riquelme, a 35-year-old who has spent recent weeks pamphleting for Boric.
Riquelme feared Kast, whose Germany-born father was recently revealed to have been a member of the Nazi party, risked plunging Chile into “instability and disorder” by opposing the grassroots movement battling to address its many social problems after 2019’s historic protests.
“Kast will undoubtedly be a step backwards,” she said of the fervent Catholic who vehemently opposes same-sex marriage, recently legalized by Chile’s parliament.
On Tuesday, Chile’s moderate former president Michelle Bachelet threw her weight behind Boric, telling Chileans they faced a “fundamental” choice and urging them to back a leader who could lead the country “down the path of progress for all”.
Chile’s 2021 race has uncanny and disturbing echoes of the profoundly polarized 2018 vote that saw Jair Bolsonaro – like Kast long viewed as a political aberration – gain control of Latin America’s largest democracy.
While a more graceful orator than his notoriously blunt Brazilian counterpart, Kast has hoisted almost identical banners including law and order, opposition to “gender ideology” and a flag-waving antipathy toward the left and its alleged bid to deny citizens their “freedom”.
All of the progress we have made in terms of women’s rights, inclusion and human rights will be affected if Kast wins on SundayGaby Riquelme
“Communism is advancing”, Kast, who is 55, warned earlier this year. “Chile needs a political alternative that seeks to recover … the freedom we have lost.”
Boric, meanwhile, has promised “hope will prevail over fear” – a carbon copy of the pledge the leftist Brazilian Fernando Haddad made before losing to Bolsonaro in October 2018.
In the weeks since last month’s first-round vote, which he narrowly won, Kast has tried to soften his tone and play down his links to Bolsonaro in an apparent bid to attract moderate voters.
During the final presidential debate on Monday he rejected claims he was homophobic, claiming that several same-sex couples had attended his daughter’s wedding.
But Kast has not always been so coy.
On 18 October 2018, 10 days before Bolsonaro won power, the Chilean flew to Rio to meet Brazil’s future president. “Jair Bolsonaro represents the hope of freedom, security, development and social justice in a Brazil that was destroyed by the left,” Kast tweeted alongside a photograph of him delivering a bright red Chile football shirt. The jersey had been personalized with the number 17, then the symbol of Bolsonaro’s far-right candidacy.
What it shows is that Kast is part of a larger story of international networks … and a movement that is basically trying to be disruptiveRobert Funk
The two men stayed in touch after Bolsonaro took power, with the Brazilian newspaper O Globo recently revealing that a key connection was the German-Chilean businessman Sven von Storch. He is the husband of Beatrix von Storch, the deputy leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party and granddaughter of Hitler’s finance minister.
In December 2018, Kast gave a keynote speech at a conservative congress organized by Bolsonaro’s congressman son, Eduardo, in the Brazilian border city of Foz do Iguaçu.
He used part of his address to recast Augusto Pinochet’s September 1973 overthrow of Chile’s socialist leader Salvador Allende, just as Bolsonaro has sought to rewrite the history of the Brazilian military dictatorship.
“Allende was overthrown by the people,” insisted Kast who has praised Pinochet’s “economic legacy”. “We have to rewrite history from our point of view,” he told delegates.
After Kast’s first-round victory last month, Eduardo – Steve Bannon’s representative in Latin America – wished the Chilean candidate luck.
Eduardo, Bolsonaro’s son, and José Antonio Kast gesture as they meet in Santiago, Chile on December 13, 2018
Photograph: Iván Alvarado/Reuters
“Kast is a patriot, internationally well-connected and a thorn in the side of the São Paulo Forum,” tweeted Bolsonaro, in reference to the leftist alliance that has become a bugbear for Latin America’s hard right.
Political scientist Robert Funk said insufficient attention was being paid to the links between Kast and the conspiracy-filled, anti-semitism-laced, anti-globalist hard-right “world of Steve Bannon”.
“I think it is very worrying and I’m amazed this has not received more play here,” said the University of Chile academic, calling Kast “part Pinochetista-right, part Catholic-conservatism and part Trumpist-Bolsonaro nationalist populist”.
“What it shows is that Kast is part of a larger story of international networks … and a movement that is basically trying to be disruptive … Kast is not the conservative candidate. He’s the disruptive candidate,” Funk added.
“The story of his contact and support with Bolsonaro, with [the Spanish far-right party] Vox, with AfD – [with] the world of Steve Bannon – is pretty worrying, and not only for Chile. It shows how far they have managed to get in politics around the world.”
Kast supporters dismiss claims their guru is a radical, just as Bolsonaristas consider their authoritarian-minded leader a paragon of democratic, Godly values.
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“I don’t find him extreme in the slightest,” Guajardo said, as Kast strode past her during his visit to Rancagua, to cheers of “Viva Chile!” and “God bless you!”
“Kast is a patriot, internationally well-connected and a thorn in the side of the São Paulo Forum,” tweeted Bolsonaro, in reference to the leftist alliance that has become a bugbear for Latin America’s hard right.
Political scientist Robert Funk said insufficient attention was being paid to the links between Kast and the conspiracy-filled, anti-semitism-laced, anti-globalist hard-right “world of Steve Bannon”.
“I think it is very worrying and I’m amazed this has not received more play here,” said the University of Chile academic, calling Kast “part Pinochetista-right, part Catholic-conservatism and part Trumpist-Bolsonaro nationalist populist”.
“What it shows is that Kast is part of a larger story of international networks … and a movement that is basically trying to be disruptive … Kast is not the conservative candidate. He’s the disruptive candidate,” Funk added.
“The story of his contact and support with Bolsonaro, with [the Spanish far-right party] Vox, with AfD – [with] the world of Steve Bannon – is pretty worrying, and not only for Chile. It shows how far they have managed to get in politics around the world.”
Kast supporters dismiss claims their guru is a radical, just as Bolsonaristas consider their authoritarian-minded leader a paragon of democratic, Godly values.
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“I don’t find him extreme in the slightest,” Guajardo said, as Kast strode past her during his visit to Rancagua, to cheers of “Viva Chile!” and “God bless you!”
Kast donned a poncho and hat at a rally in San Fernando.
Photograph: Martin Bernetti/AFP/Getty Images
Later that evening Kast took to the stage amid flurries of white confetti to address a boisterous crowd in the nearby town of San Fernando.
He donned a poncho to dance cueca, Chile’s national dance, and led a solemn rendition of the national anthem while hundreds of Chilean flags fluttered above the crowd. “Each of us must go out into the streets and raise the Chilean flag, which represents all of us,” he declared, to rapturous applause.
Many of his supporters are convinced the right-winger could save Chile from being plunged back into what they describe as Venezuela-style socialist turmoil.
“I want democracy, peace and stability,” said Campos. “José Antonio Kast represents all of these things.”
Later that evening Kast took to the stage amid flurries of white confetti to address a boisterous crowd in the nearby town of San Fernando.
He donned a poncho to dance cueca, Chile’s national dance, and led a solemn rendition of the national anthem while hundreds of Chilean flags fluttered above the crowd. “Each of us must go out into the streets and raise the Chilean flag, which represents all of us,” he declared, to rapturous applause.
Many of his supporters are convinced the right-winger could save Chile from being plunged back into what they describe as Venezuela-style socialist turmoil.
“I want democracy, peace and stability,” said Campos. “José Antonio Kast represents all of these things.”
Explainer: 'Communism vs fascism?' Chile braces for polarized presidential run-off
SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Chile is set to vote for a new president on Sunday, with a young former student leader Gabriel Boric on the left battling far-right conservative Jose Antonio Kast, in the most polarized election since the country's return to democracy in 1990.
An at times heated campaign has seen Kast play up Boric's alliance with the Andean country's Communist Party, while Kast himself has come under fire for his defense of the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet that ended three decades ago.
The run-off vote is the first presidential decider since Chile was rocked in 2019 by months of angry protests https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/chile-braces-protests-crossroads-election-nears-2021-10-18 against economic inequalities that eventually sparked a process https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/how-chile-is-rewriting-its-pinochet-era-constitution-2021-05-14 - still ongoing - to redraft its decades-old constitution.
"What we're seeing here is a debate stuck in the cold war trenches, of communism versus fascism," said Kenneth Bunker, director of consultancy Tresquintos, who said the "virulence and polarization" could put some voters off.
"It's the old left-right divide."
HOW WILL THE VOTE WORK?
The winner-takes-all Dec. 19 election will see Chileans vote for a new president after a fragmented first-round ballot in mid-November also chose members of Congress and regional councils.
The voting starts at 8 a.m. (1100 GMT) and ballot stations close around 6 p.m., with results expected to come in fairly quickly Sunday evening.
WHO IS RUNNING?
The two candidates going head-to-head are 55-year-old ultra-right former congressman Kast https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/chiles-kast-channels-pinochets-ghost-against-communist-left-2021-12-15, who is just behind in opinion polls against Boric https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/student-leader-president-chiles-boric-eyes-historic-election-win-2021-12-15, 35, a former leader student running for a leftist coalition.
There had been seven candidates in the November first round, with votes from the more centrist runners on the right and left seen as key to deciding which way the vote will go.
WHO'S THE FAVORITE?
Pollsters expect a close race, with Boric slightly ahead in pre-election polls since Kast came top in a fragmented first round vote. More moderate voters, the polls show, have swung to Boric more than Kast though the gap is narrowing.
However, history is potentially against Boric. Since 1999, the winner of the first round vote has always gone on to win the second round run-off.
WHAT ARE THE MAIN ISSUES?
Many Chileans support the free-market policies that propelled the copper-rich country to decades of growth and made it a bastion of economic stability in volatile Latin America. But an increasing number want change to address the deep inequalities.
Some of the loudest demands have stemmed from anger over paltry retirement payouts blamed by critics on Chile's highly privatized pension system, while others have criticized the high costs and sometimes dubious quality of privatized education, and gaps between public and private healthcare.
Conservative voters have raised questions about increased immigration, and there are law and order concerns sparked by the protests in the capital and violent clashes between police and Mapuche indigenous groups in the country's south.
Whoever wins the presidency will also have to handle a referendum to approve or reject the text of a new constitution during their first year in office. An assembly, dominated by leftist and independent representatives, is leading the constitution redraft.
SPLIT CONGRESS
Despite a polarized presidential race, markets took solace from the congressional result in November, with a fairly even balance between parties on the left and right likely to moderate the power of the executive branch and any radical reforms.
"(The winner) is going to have to face a Congress different from the current one, a more balanced congress, almost split in two halves," said Marco Moreno, director of the school of government from the Central University of Chile.
<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Chile was a regional role model. Now voters want change
Mind the Gap https://tmsnrt.rs/3ykKZi9
Mind the Gap (Interactive graphic) https://tmsnrt.rs/3dL3KSk
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>
(Reporting by Fabian Cambero; Editing by Adam Jourdan, Rosalba O'Brien and Marguerita Choy)
SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Chile is set to vote for a new president on Sunday, with a young former student leader Gabriel Boric on the left battling far-right conservative Jose Antonio Kast, in the most polarized election since the country's return to democracy in 1990.
An at times heated campaign has seen Kast play up Boric's alliance with the Andean country's Communist Party, while Kast himself has come under fire for his defense of the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet that ended three decades ago.
The run-off vote is the first presidential decider since Chile was rocked in 2019 by months of angry protests https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/chile-braces-protests-crossroads-election-nears-2021-10-18 against economic inequalities that eventually sparked a process https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/how-chile-is-rewriting-its-pinochet-era-constitution-2021-05-14 - still ongoing - to redraft its decades-old constitution.
"What we're seeing here is a debate stuck in the cold war trenches, of communism versus fascism," said Kenneth Bunker, director of consultancy Tresquintos, who said the "virulence and polarization" could put some voters off.
"It's the old left-right divide."
HOW WILL THE VOTE WORK?
The winner-takes-all Dec. 19 election will see Chileans vote for a new president after a fragmented first-round ballot in mid-November also chose members of Congress and regional councils.
The voting starts at 8 a.m. (1100 GMT) and ballot stations close around 6 p.m., with results expected to come in fairly quickly Sunday evening.
WHO IS RUNNING?
The two candidates going head-to-head are 55-year-old ultra-right former congressman Kast https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/chiles-kast-channels-pinochets-ghost-against-communist-left-2021-12-15, who is just behind in opinion polls against Boric https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/student-leader-president-chiles-boric-eyes-historic-election-win-2021-12-15, 35, a former leader student running for a leftist coalition.
There had been seven candidates in the November first round, with votes from the more centrist runners on the right and left seen as key to deciding which way the vote will go.
WHO'S THE FAVORITE?
Pollsters expect a close race, with Boric slightly ahead in pre-election polls since Kast came top in a fragmented first round vote. More moderate voters, the polls show, have swung to Boric more than Kast though the gap is narrowing.
However, history is potentially against Boric. Since 1999, the winner of the first round vote has always gone on to win the second round run-off.
WHAT ARE THE MAIN ISSUES?
Many Chileans support the free-market policies that propelled the copper-rich country to decades of growth and made it a bastion of economic stability in volatile Latin America. But an increasing number want change to address the deep inequalities.
Some of the loudest demands have stemmed from anger over paltry retirement payouts blamed by critics on Chile's highly privatized pension system, while others have criticized the high costs and sometimes dubious quality of privatized education, and gaps between public and private healthcare.
Conservative voters have raised questions about increased immigration, and there are law and order concerns sparked by the protests in the capital and violent clashes between police and Mapuche indigenous groups in the country's south.
Whoever wins the presidency will also have to handle a referendum to approve or reject the text of a new constitution during their first year in office. An assembly, dominated by leftist and independent representatives, is leading the constitution redraft.
SPLIT CONGRESS
Despite a polarized presidential race, markets took solace from the congressional result in November, with a fairly even balance between parties on the left and right likely to moderate the power of the executive branch and any radical reforms.
"(The winner) is going to have to face a Congress different from the current one, a more balanced congress, almost split in two halves," said Marco Moreno, director of the school of government from the Central University of Chile.
<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Chile was a regional role model. Now voters want change
Mind the Gap https://tmsnrt.rs/3ykKZi9
Mind the Gap (Interactive graphic) https://tmsnrt.rs/3dL3KSk
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^>
(Reporting by Fabian Cambero; Editing by Adam Jourdan, Rosalba O'Brien and Marguerita Choy)
A tale of two Chiles: polar opposites vie for presidency
A tale of two Chiles: polar opposites vie for presidencyJose Antonio Kast is an open admirer of Chile's former dictator Augusto Pinochet (AFP/Ernesto BENAVIDES)
Thu, December 16, 2021
Two political outsiders with polar opposite social and political views go head-to-head in a runoff election Sunday to become Chile's next president.
Who are they?
- Far-right -
Lawyer and ex-MP Jose Antonio Kast, 55, is an outspoken admirer of Chile's former dictator Augusto Pinochet and of his neoliberal economic model that has boosted private enterprise, critics say at the expense of the poor and working classes.
The law-and-order candidate came out on top in the first round of presidential elections on November 21, with 27.9 percent of the vote.
Kast, leader of the Republican Party he founded in 2019, has expressed kinship with other conservative leaders such as Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro, Donald Trump in the United States and Spain's far-right Vox party.
He protests when he is called "extreme right," and says he wants to be known as "a common-sense candidate."
This is Kast's second presidential contest -- in 2017, as an independent, he made it to fourth place with less than eight percent of the vote.
Married and a father to nine children, Kast is an active member of the Schoenstatt conservative Catholic movement. He is against gay marriage and abortion.
Kast hails from German immigrants who moved to Santiago in 1951 and became wealthy from sausage production and a restaurant chain. His father was a soldier in the Nazi military.
Kast's economic model proposes reducing public spending, cutting taxes and trimming the number of ministries.
He has softened his position on several points since November, reversing his proposal to scrap the ministry of women's affairs and backing down on his threat to undo Chile's already limited right to abortion, which is only allowed in cases of rape, if the fetus is unviable, or if the woman's life is at risk.
But he has not backed down on his plan to dig a border "trench" to keep out illegal immigrants, particularly from Venezuela.
Kast wants to retain Chile's system of private pensions, one of the main gripes of protesters who took to the streets in October 2019 to denounce deep-rooted social inequality.
And he has promised to restore order in a time of great political uncertainty, with many Chileans fearful of immigration and crime and angry about violence and arson committed by some anti-government protesters.
- Left -
At 35, lawmaker Gabriel Boric is Chile's youngest-ever presidential challenger -- only just meeting the required minimum age to participate.
The former student activist has vowed to relegate Chile's neoliberal economic policies, widely seen as sidelining the poor and working classes, "to the grave."
The millennial campaigned on introducing "a welfare state so that everyone has the same rights no matter how much money they have in their wallet."
Chile is one of the world's most socially unequal countries, where people pay wholly or in part for education and healthcare, and pensions are entirely made up of private savings.
Chile has one of the highest per capita incomes in Latin America and one of the highest concentrations of multimillionaires, but also "persistently high inequality" between rich and poor, according to the OECD.
The candidate for the Approve Dignity coalition that includes the left-wing Frente Amplio (Broad Front) and the Communist Party, ended up in a close second place with 25.8 percent of the vote in November's first round.
"If Chile was the cradle of neoliberalism in Latin America, it will also be its grave," he said on the campaign trail.
His alliance with the Communist Party instills fear in many voters in a country with a deep-seated distrust of socialism.
Boric backed the 2019 anti-government protests that resulted in a process to rewrite Chile's dictatorship-era constitution.
In 2011, he led student protests for free schooling.
His detractors say Boric is inexperienced in politics, and he himself has conceded he has "much to learn."
But supporters say his lack of ties to the ruling elite, increasingly viewed with hostility, counts in his favor.
He has received the backing of former president Michelle Bachelet, the UN's high commissioner for human rights.
Boric, of Croatian and Catalan descent, has abandoned the unkempt, long hair of his activist days, seeking to build a more consensual and moderate image. But while he has adopted jackets, he shuns ties and makes no attempt to hide his tattoos.
He supports gay marriage and abortion rights.
Boric was born in Punta Arenas, some 3,000 kilometers (1,860 miles) south of Santiago. He is the oldest of three brothers and moved to the capital to study law, though he never sat for his bar exam.
He is unmarried, has no children and is an avid reader of poetry and history.
bur-mlr/to
A tale of two Chiles: polar opposites vie for presidencyJose Antonio Kast is an open admirer of Chile's former dictator Augusto Pinochet (AFP/Ernesto BENAVIDES)
Thu, December 16, 2021
Two political outsiders with polar opposite social and political views go head-to-head in a runoff election Sunday to become Chile's next president.
Who are they?
- Far-right -
Lawyer and ex-MP Jose Antonio Kast, 55, is an outspoken admirer of Chile's former dictator Augusto Pinochet and of his neoliberal economic model that has boosted private enterprise, critics say at the expense of the poor and working classes.
The law-and-order candidate came out on top in the first round of presidential elections on November 21, with 27.9 percent of the vote.
Kast, leader of the Republican Party he founded in 2019, has expressed kinship with other conservative leaders such as Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro, Donald Trump in the United States and Spain's far-right Vox party.
He protests when he is called "extreme right," and says he wants to be known as "a common-sense candidate."
This is Kast's second presidential contest -- in 2017, as an independent, he made it to fourth place with less than eight percent of the vote.
Married and a father to nine children, Kast is an active member of the Schoenstatt conservative Catholic movement. He is against gay marriage and abortion.
Kast hails from German immigrants who moved to Santiago in 1951 and became wealthy from sausage production and a restaurant chain. His father was a soldier in the Nazi military.
Kast's economic model proposes reducing public spending, cutting taxes and trimming the number of ministries.
He has softened his position on several points since November, reversing his proposal to scrap the ministry of women's affairs and backing down on his threat to undo Chile's already limited right to abortion, which is only allowed in cases of rape, if the fetus is unviable, or if the woman's life is at risk.
But he has not backed down on his plan to dig a border "trench" to keep out illegal immigrants, particularly from Venezuela.
Kast wants to retain Chile's system of private pensions, one of the main gripes of protesters who took to the streets in October 2019 to denounce deep-rooted social inequality.
And he has promised to restore order in a time of great political uncertainty, with many Chileans fearful of immigration and crime and angry about violence and arson committed by some anti-government protesters.
- Left -
At 35, lawmaker Gabriel Boric is Chile's youngest-ever presidential challenger -- only just meeting the required minimum age to participate.
The former student activist has vowed to relegate Chile's neoliberal economic policies, widely seen as sidelining the poor and working classes, "to the grave."
The millennial campaigned on introducing "a welfare state so that everyone has the same rights no matter how much money they have in their wallet."
Chile is one of the world's most socially unequal countries, where people pay wholly or in part for education and healthcare, and pensions are entirely made up of private savings.
Chile has one of the highest per capita incomes in Latin America and one of the highest concentrations of multimillionaires, but also "persistently high inequality" between rich and poor, according to the OECD.
The candidate for the Approve Dignity coalition that includes the left-wing Frente Amplio (Broad Front) and the Communist Party, ended up in a close second place with 25.8 percent of the vote in November's first round.
"If Chile was the cradle of neoliberalism in Latin America, it will also be its grave," he said on the campaign trail.
His alliance with the Communist Party instills fear in many voters in a country with a deep-seated distrust of socialism.
Boric backed the 2019 anti-government protests that resulted in a process to rewrite Chile's dictatorship-era constitution.
In 2011, he led student protests for free schooling.
His detractors say Boric is inexperienced in politics, and he himself has conceded he has "much to learn."
But supporters say his lack of ties to the ruling elite, increasingly viewed with hostility, counts in his favor.
He has received the backing of former president Michelle Bachelet, the UN's high commissioner for human rights.
Boric, of Croatian and Catalan descent, has abandoned the unkempt, long hair of his activist days, seeking to build a more consensual and moderate image. But while he has adopted jackets, he shuns ties and makes no attempt to hide his tattoos.
He supports gay marriage and abortion rights.
Boric was born in Punta Arenas, some 3,000 kilometers (1,860 miles) south of Santiago. He is the oldest of three brothers and moved to the capital to study law, though he never sat for his bar exam.
He is unmarried, has no children and is an avid reader of poetry and history.
bur-mlr/to
