"The ultra-conservative former congressman Jose Antonio Kast has been elected as Chile's next president. With more than 99% of polling stations counted, Kast took 58.17% of the vote, against 41.83% for the leftist Jeannette Jara, a former labour minister under the current president, Gabriel Boric. The son of a Nazi party member, an admirer of the dictator Augusto Pinochet and a staunch Catholic known for opposing abortion and same-sex marriage, Kast built his campaign on a promise to expel tens of thousands of undocumented migrants."
"During the campaign, he gave the roughly 330,000 undocumented migrants most of them Venezuelan an ultimatum to leave before the next president takes office on 11 March or be expelled with only the clothes on their backs. His platform included a Trump-inspired plan to build detention centres and five-metre-high walls, electric fences and three-metre-deep trenches, as well as an increased military presence along the border, particularly in the north, on the frontier with Peru and Bolivia."
"Although Jara won the first round in November, Kast's victory had been widely anticipated by polls and because he was expected to inherit the votes of the other rightwing candidates, which far outnumbered those of the left. Many analysts believe the ultra-conservative succeeded in addressing one of Chileans' main concerns: rising violence, which has increased in recent years even though the country remains one of the safest in Latin America."
José Antonio Kast won Chile's presidency with 58.17% of the vote to Jeannette Jara's 41.83%, with over 99% of polling stations counted. Kast is the son of a Nazi party member, an admirer of Augusto Pinochet and a staunch Catholic who opposes abortion and same-sex marriage. Kast campaigned on expelling tens of thousands of undocumented migrants and promised detention centres, five-metre walls, electric fences, trenches and increased military presence along northern borders. Kast previously lost the 2021 runoff to Gabriel Boric. Migration has doubled in a decade, driven by about 700,000 Venezuelans, and Kast blamed migrants for rising insecurity.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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