santiago, chile
Reuters
—
José Antonio Casto won Chile’s presidential election on Sunday, capitalizing on voter fears over rising crime and immigration and sending the country into its sharpest shift to the right since the fall of the dictatorship in 1990.
In the run-off election, with more than 95% of the votes counted, Kast secured 58.30% of the votes against leftist candidate Janet Hara’s 41.70%.
“Democracy has been loud and clear,” Jara said, acknowledging that. “I have been in contact with José Antonio Casto and wish him every success for Chile.”
Throughout his decades-long political career, Kast has consistently been a right-wing hardliner. He has proposed building a border wall, sending troops to crime-ridden areas and deporting all immigrants in the country illegally.
His victory marks the latest victory for the resurgent right in Latin America. He joins Ecuador’s Daniel Novoa, El Salvador’s Nayib Boucle and Argentina’s Javier Millay. In October, the election of centrist Rodrigo Paz ended nearly two decades of socialist rule in Bolivia.
The campaign marks Kast’s third presidential bid and second run-off, after losing to left-wing President Gabriel Boric in 2021. Once seen as too extreme by many Chileans, it has attracted voters increasingly concerned about crime and immigration.
Supporters arrived at Casto’s camp headquarters in Santiago on Sunday night waving Chilean flags. Some wore red hats that read “Make Chile Great Again.”
Among them was Ignacio Segovia, a 23-year-old engineering student.
“I grew up in a peaceful Chile where I could go to the city, where I didn’t have to worry about anything, and I never had any problems or fear when I went outside,” he said. “Now I don’t feel safe going out.”
Chile remains one of the safest countries in Latin America, but violent crime has soared in recent years as organized crime groups take advantage of its porous northern desert border with coca-producing neighbors Peru and Bolivia, its major international ports and its booming population of migrants vulnerable to human and sex trafficking.
The majority of Chile’s migrants have entered the country illegally from Venezuela in recent years, according to government data.
Casto’s proposals include creating a police force inspired by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to illegally detain and deport immigrants in the country.
He also advocated major cuts in public spending.
But Casto’s more radical proposals are likely to face pushback from a divided Congress. Right-wing parties won seats in both houses of Congress in November’s general election, but most of the seat gains went to more traditional parties. The upper house is evenly divided between left-wing and right-wing parties, but the populist People’s Party has a majority of votes in the lower house.
Chile is the world’s largest copper producer and a major producer of lithium, and hopes for deregulation and market-friendly policies have already boosted local stock markets, the peso and stock indexes.
Casto has previously spoken out against abortion and the morning-after pill, but changing the country’s abortion laws would require support from more than half of parliament.
