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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://resumen-english.org/2025/12/chile-kasts-victory-and-the-collapse-of-progressive-expectations/">resumen-english.org</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Chile: Kast\u2019s Victory and the Collapse of Progressive Expectations</h1>
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<p>By Alejandra Garcia and Bill Hackwell on December 16, 2025</p>
<div id="gmail-attachment_32950" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32950" src="https://i0.wp.com/resumen-english.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/12-17-11-28-4983625651235523369-768x512.jpg-768x445-1.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1" alt="" width="300" height="169" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-32950" class="gmail-wp-caption-text">Kast and Pinochet</p></div>
<p>Chile woke up this December to a major political fact: José Antonio
Kast\u2014son of a Nazi officer and a defender of Pinochet\u2014won the
presidential runoff with 58.16% of the vote against Jeannette Jara\u2019s
41.84%. His victory became the emblem of a conservative return that is
not only Chilean, but part of a broader regional cycle of \u201cpunishment
voting\u201d and demands for \u201corder.\u201d<span id="gmail-more-32949"></span></p>
<p>Kast had foreshadowed it on the campaign trail: \u201cThe third time is
the charm.\u201d And it was. After two failed attempts, the far-right leader
managed to capitalize on the weakening of the progressive cycle and
present himself as the \u201csimple\u201d answer for a country marked by social
anxiety, insecurity, and frustration with institutional politics.</p>
<p>His victory has not come as a surprise. For months, all the polls had
been predicting this outcome. The candidate built his victory on a
discourse of a punitive, neoliberal package: building walls and fences
at the borders, mass expulsions of migrants in an irregular situation.
\u201c103 days remain for them to leave Chile voluntarily,\u201d Kast warned
during a presidential debate, referring to the deadline irregular
migrants would have to leave the country before he takes office as
president.</p>
<p>Kast also promulgated a tough-on-crime rhetoric and the use of
violence against drug trafficking, alongside massive cuts to public
spending. In foreign policy, he also argued he would support a potential
U.S. intervention in Venezuela, aligning himself with Washington\u2019s
hardest-line script in the region.</p>
<p>Another aspect of the Kast victoy according to Chilean political
analyst Jaime Lorca, was compulsory voting was instituted for the first
time in Chile and it acted as a channel to express social discontent
with the government of <a href="http://www.cubadebate.cu/noticias/2022/09/11/boric-anuncia-plan-de-busqueda-de-mas-de-1-000-desaparecidos-durante-la-dictadura-de-pinochet/">Gabriel Boric</a>,
whose approval ratings in the second half of his term hovered around a
meager 30 percent, toward Pinochetism and its allies. Issues such as
insecurity, hatred of immigrants (especially Venezuelans), and
inflation\u2014close to 4 percent annually\u2014were demagogically stirred up by
the Pinochetist candidate, a man as careless with figures and
exaggeration as Javier Milei.</p>
<p>The regional dimension of the phenomenon was immediately underscored.
Less than 48 hours after his victory, Kast crossed the Andes to meet
Javier Milei in Buenos Aires, in a photo-op aimed at projecting a
strategic pro imperialist unity across South America\u2019s far right:
coordinated messaging, a shared \u201csecurity\u201d agenda, and the same horizon
of austerity, social discipline, and a cultural offensive meaning taking
a page out of Trump\u2019s brutal anti immigrant policies.</p>
<p>Kast has prevailed over a left that recorded its worst electoral
result since 1990, paying the price for the Gabriel Boric
administration\u2019s dull record. Boric came to power in the wake of the
2019 social uprising, but he failed to deliver the promised
constitutional transformation or fully meet the public\u2019s expectations
for change. This is a major step backwards when hopes were high to get
rid of Pinochet\u2019s constitution and Kast\u2019s victory means it continues.</p>
<p>This mix of social frustration, a perception of governmental
ineffectiveness, and mounting economic and security pressures steadily
eroded support for the left\u2014clearing the way for Kast and his narrative
of order, public safety, and the defense of traditional values as an
alternative to widespread disillusionment.</p>
<p>This is also a war over memory. Kast\u2019s family background matters less
as \u201cinherited guilt\u201d than as a marker of political genealogy and the
ongoing dispute over Chile\u2019s historical common sense. For years he has
carried the controversy surrounding his father\u2019s past: journalistic
investigations and documents cited by the Associated Press point to
Michael Kast\u2019s affiliation with the NSDAP (Nazi Party) in 1942\u2014an issue
that periodically reappears in public debate.</p>
<p>That fact does not mechanically \u201cexplain\u201d a political program, but it
clarifies why Kast is situated in a symbolic field where Pinochetism is
not a closed chapter but a usable repertoire\u2014an available language of
discipline, hierarchy, and anti-left crusade. Reuters has noted
\u201cpersonal and family support\u201d for the dictatorship in his background,
while AP highlights nostalgia for that period as part of his ideological
profile. In a moment of insecurity, that repertoire can be reactivated
as a promise: order without redistribution, stability without justice.</p>
<p>The victory of the extreme-right-wing in Chile appears to
consolidate a global strain of far-right ascendancy. It Also coincides
with growing U.S. geopolitical interference in the region. Beyond
Donald Trump\u2019s call to vote for conservative candidates, the U.S.
president is maintaining an unprecedented menacing naval deployment in
Caribbean waters.</p>
<p>According to Argentine sociologist, Atilio Boron, what we we can
expect from the Kast government is brutal cuts in social spending, a
redefinition of the advances made in relation to women\u2019s rights, and a
redefinition of Chile\u2019s international alliances. He will surely attempt
to deepen the economic model developed during the Pinochet dictatorship,
the foundations of which remained untouched by Chile\u2019s long and
unfinished democratic transition. Kast will also be pressured by
Washington to undertake the arduous task of cooling his country\u2019s
relations with China, Chile\u2019s largest trading partner and the country
with which it signed a core Free Trade Agreement with in 2005.</p>
<p>Kast\u2019s landslide should be read less as a sudden ideological
\u201cconversion\u201d of Chile and more as the political crystallization of
accumulated frustration after the 2019 social uprising, the failure to
deliver the promised constitutional transformation, and the primacy of
insecurity in everyday life. The key risk is not only what Kast can pass
institutionally, but the symbolic shift he accelerates: the
normalization of an authoritarian repertoire\u2014discipline, hierarchy,
anti-left crusade, and exceptionalism against migrants and
protest\u2014packaged as public safety.</p>
<p>This rightward turn is reinforced trans nationally through a toxic
far-right coordination (Kast\u2013Milei) and a regional environment shaped by
U.S. political signaling and hard-power advancement in Latin America.
For the left there is no time for demoralization and just denunciation
is insufficient. What is needed is a left movement with a plan of
reconstruction, plus a rights-based security agenda and a material
program that restores expectations (wages, services, housing) to win
back the dispute over common sense and memory.</p>
<p>Source: Resumen Latinoamericano \u2013 English</p>
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