Chile Elects Jose Antonio Kast, Most Right-Wing President Since General Pinochet

Latin America Correspondent Jon Bonfiglio speaks to Darryl Morris for Times Radio. 

Transcript

Darryl Morris: 0:00

Hello there, good morning. Uh twenty-four minutes past midnight. It is Monday morning. Thank you for being with us today. Zoë Grünewald, Westminster editor at Leeds, is with us. You hold it up, okay, Zoe?

Zoë Grünewald: 0:09

Holding up, yes. Thank you.

Darryl Morris: 0:11

Good. You've picked out some excellent stories, some things that um we might have missed, some stuff that might have kind of like escaped our attention, uh, that we'll get into properly after um um half eleven, including the story about mountain rescuers who have been overwhelmed because of sort of people influenced by social media going on thrill-seeking trips that they're just basically not equipped for at all. Um so we'll we'll get to that in a minute. Um in the meantime, the far-right candidate, Jose Antonio Kast has won Chile's presidential election this weekend. Jon Bonfiglio is there for us. Jon, hello there. Good evening. Hey Darryl. Um tell us what we need to know.

Jon Bonfiglio: 0:51

Well, he's not just won, he's won by a huge margin, 20% over uh the continuity candidate um Jeanette Jara, which for a sort of a runoff election is is enormous. Um it was broadly expected, I think it's fair to say, given that the election results of the first round uh a month ago. Uh and uh yeah, José Antonio Kast, right winger, has won the election to the Chilean Chilean presidency, making him uh the most right-wing president since the era of dictator Augusto Pinochet in the country. Um just to sort of establish some of his right-wing credentials. His father was a member of the Nazi Party. Uh, he is an admirer of uh General Pinochet. He has labelled Mapuche Indigenous activist groups terrorists and is staunchly anti-abortion and gay marriage. But interestingly, it's not these positions which won him the election. He's actually largely avoided those platforms. He lost the election, the presidential election on two previous attempts, and he sort of knows that those positions are something of a liability. So this time instead, he focused on a mandate, an exclusive mandate of crime and immigration, specifically linked to the regional growth of transnational criminal organizations right across Latin America and the fallout from the Venezuelan economic crisis, which has led to millions of Venezuelans um Venezuelan migrants fleeing to other countries, uh, in which of which Chile is one.

Darryl Morris: 2:13

And that, I mean, that feels sort of like a familiar story, doesn't it, Jon? We've been talking about a lot, and we've we've talked to you and I in recent uh weeks and months about the sort of access of influence from North America, from the the the right of politics uh through Latin America too.

Jon Bonfiglio: 2:30

Yeah, I mean it's so much, I mean, it's a big electoral period in Latin America, there's 18 months where almost every country is is going to um to the polls and of course there is the looming specter of influence from the USA as well. So it is a uh something of an existential moment, I think, for uh Latin America in face of this sort of expansionist US US agenda, which countries either echo Trump or attempt to present an alternative uh future. Interestingly, Trump did not actually endorse José Antonio Kast, as he has endorsed other um other candidates in recent elections. Uh, but it he is basically regarded as being sort of not even Trump-like, but an echo of the policies of uh of Donald Trump to um uh to the north. He's actually uh made a point, uh, José Antonio Kast of counting the days, counting down the days until the presidential accession in March, because although the election is taking place now, it's a few months until power changes hands. And he said that at that point in March, any migrant who hasn't already left the country will be forced to leave with just, and I quote, with just the clothes on their backs. He's talked of building a wall with Chile's neighbors, of the construction of massive uh detention centers. Of course, there are there are not just echoes, but direct comparisons being uh being invoked of uh cast and Trump, and and of it's worth saying as well, um uh uh Jair Bolsonaro, ex-president of Brazil, who's currently serving an extended jail period for an attempted coup.

Zoë Grünewald: 4:00

Hi, Jon. Um it's Zoë Grünewald here, um talking with Daryl. Thanks for coming on. I I'm interested to know, obviously, um sometimes analysts sort of talk about uh cycles, I guess, in Latin American politics where kind of the left and right has alternated. Obviously, historically, Latin America has had a pink tide of left-leaning governments. Is that is that disappearing across Latin America? Is this a symptom of that? Or are we still seeing pockets of left, center-left dominance? Um, and I guess what what your prediction is for how that balance is going to manifest in in the coming years?

Jon Bonfiglio: 4:35

There certainly was a pink tide of the late uh noughties in which a number of different democracies, not all, but a number of different different democracies, uh, sort of took a political position. And I think you're right, there is undoubtedly a sort of a yoke which binds uh Latin America, which which gives a sort of a shared identity. In terms of what is left of the center left now, uh I mean the uh the reason why this election is important is because uh Chile is one of the biggest democracies in Latin America. So it's it's a real indicator of potential shift. But the individuals that are left really are Claudia Scheinbaum in in Mexico. Now she's something of an outlier because although she is uh of the center left, actually, Mexico doesn't really have, doesn't really fit into the rest of sort of the Latin American political mould. It doesn't engage with the other democracies, with the other countries to the same extent. It's always sort of uh regarded itself as something of an independent creature and an outlier. So the the the big um one remaining, of course, is is Brazil under Lula da Silva, and they're going to the elections in a year's time. So that's going to be a significant indicator. But uh and Colombia as well, that are currently on the left, but that's almost certain to switch. But basically everybody else, all other countries uh so far have undertaken a significant shift uh to to the right. And Honduras's most recent election, where there was a direct endorsement by Donald Trump, whichever of the two candidates wins out there is either centre right or extreme right as well. It is something of a marked shift. You're absolutely right, Zoe.

Darryl Morris: 6:00

Okay. Jon, really insightful as ever. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Uh Jon Bonfiglio with us in uh Latin America on the results of those elections in Chile, part of that sort of bigger picture, really, that that um shifts in Latin America. I think a lot of those Latin American companies sort of falling a bit into Donald Trump's orbit. Um, Chile there, where Jose Antonio Kast, the um conservative hardliner, has won by some margin the presidency there.