The Daily Populous Monday December 15th, 2025 morning edition
Authored by aljazeera.com and submitted by Drunken_Monkey

Kast’s victory is seen as part of a recent trend of right-wing victories across Latin America, including in Argentina and Ecuador.

Far-right candidate Jose Antonio Kast has won a run-off election to become Chile’s 38th president, ousting the centre-left government currently in power.

On Sunday, with nearly all the ballots counted, Kast prevailed with 58 percent of the vote, defeating former Labour Minister Jeannette Jara, a Communist Party politician who represented the governing centre-left coalition.

Jara and her coalition, Unity for Chile, conceded defeat shortly after the polls closed in the South American country.

“Democracy has spoken loud and clear. I have just spoken with President-elect [Kast] to wish him success for the good of Chile,” Jara wrote on social media.

“To those who supported us and were inspired by our candidacy, rest assured that we will continue working to build a better life in our country. Together and standing strong, as we always have.”

Kast, meanwhile, hailed the election results as a “broad mandate” to carry out his political agenda in a victory speech to supporters.

“This is not a personal achievement, nor is it a party achievement,” he told the crowd. “Chile won here, with the hope of no longer living in fear, of a Chile that works.”

The result marks the latest victory for the far right in Latin America, which has seen a streak of right-wing leaders once considered political outsiders rise to power in countries like Argentina and Ecuador.

The tally also marks a significant comeback for Kast himself, the 59-year-old leader of the Republican Party. The 2025 election marks his third attempt to win the presidency — and his first successful bid.

During the last election, in 2021, he was trounced by outgoing President Gabriel Boric, who won by nearly a 10-point margin.

But Boric, a former student leader who became Chile’s youngest president, had seen his popularity slump to about 30 percent by the end of his four-year term. He was also ineligible to run for a second term under Chilean law.

In public opinion polls, voters also expressed frustration with recent spikes in crime and immigration, as well as a softening of Chile’s economy.

Kast, meanwhile, campaigned on the promise of change. He said he would address voter concerns by carrying out crackdowns on crime and immigration, including through a campaign of mass deportation, similar to what United States President Donald Trump has done in North America.

His security platform — dubbed the “Implacable Plan” — also proposes stiffer mandatory minimum sentencing, incarcerating more criminals in maximum security facilities, and putting cartel leaders in “total isolation” to cut them off from any communication with the outside world.

“Today, while criminals and drug traffickers walk freely through the streets, committing crimes and intimidating people, honest Chileans are locked in their homes, paralyzed by fear,” Kast writes in his security plan.

Informed by his socially conservative Catholic background, Kast has also taken a hard-right stance towards social and health issues, including abortion, which he opposes even in cases of rape.

But those hardline policies earned Kast criticism on the campaign trail. Critics have also seized upon his own sympathetic comments about Chile’s former dictator, military leader Augusto Pinochet.

In 1973, Pinochet oversaw a right-wing military coup that ousted the democratically elected leader, Salvador Allende. He proceeded to rule the country until 1990. His government became known for its widespread human rights abuses and brutal oppression of political dissent, with thousands executed and tens of thousands tortured.

While Kast has rejected the label “far right”, he has repeatedly defended Pinochet’s government. Of Pinochet, Kast famously quipped, “If he were alive, he would vote for me.”

Opponents also sought to draw attention to Kast’s family ties: His father, Michael Martin Kast, was born in Germany and had been a member of the Nazi Party. The elder Kast immigrated to Chile in 1950.

Reporting from a polling site in the capital of Santiago, Al Jazeera correspondent Lucia Newman noted that Sunday’s victory was a historic one for Chile’s far right. But, she noted, Kast has sought to moderate his platform to better appeal to voters in the current election cycle.

“This is the first time since 1990 — since the military dictatorship before 1990, when Chile returned to democracy — that such a conservative government will be in power,” Newman explained.

“It’s really not certain just how conservative it will be. Jose Antonio Kast was a supporter of former dictator General Augusto Pinochet. He has shirked away from that in recent years, and certainly in this campaign.”

In the wake of Kast’s election victory, right-wing leaders from across the Americas offered their congratulations in statements on social media.

“Congratulations to Chilean President-Elect [Jose Antonio Kast] on his victory,” Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio wrote. “The United States looks forward to partnering with his administration to strengthen regional security and revitalize our trade relationship.”

Argentina’s libertarian leader Javier Milei likewise chimed in, hailing Kast’s election as a major win for Latin America’s conservative political movement.

“FREEDOM IS ADVANCING,” Milei wrote, echoing his own campaign rallying cry.

“Enormous joy at the overwhelming victory of my friend [Jose Antonio Kast] in the Chilean presidential elections! One more step for our region in defense of life, liberty, and private property. I am sure that we will work together so that America embraces the ideas of freedom and we can free ourselves from the oppressive yoke of 21st-century socialism…!!!”

Ecuador’s right-wing President Daniel Noboa, meanwhile, said that “a new era is beginning for Chile and for the region”.

This year’s presidential race was the first time since 2012 that voting had been compulsory in the country. There are approximately 15.7 million eligible voters in the South American country.

Kast originally came in second place during the first round of voting on November 16. He scored about 23.9 percent of the vote, compared with Jara’s 26.8 percent.

But polls had widely favoured him to win in the run-off. While Chile’s left wing held a primary in June and coalesced around its victor, Jara, right-wing parties did not hold a primary to choose a coalition nominee.

The result was a fractured right in the first round of voting. But in the final contest, Kast was able to sweep up votes that had previously gone to his right-leaning adversaries, earning him a comfortable win.

Still, Kast faces a divided National Congress, which is expected to blunt some of his more hardline proposals. Kast will be sworn in on March 11.

Brilliant-Lab546 on December 14th, 2025 at 23:44 UTC »

Wait ,isn't he the one whose dad was an actual Nazi???

carboncord on December 14th, 2025 at 23:16 UTC »

The other candidate was from the Communist Party. I am not sure how Chileans were left with these as their two options, but here we are.

nm07sc on December 14th, 2025 at 23:16 UTC »

For all the guys wondering how did this happen, basically the election was between this dude and the communist candidate, and that is a big no no here.

Even when Reddit loves Boric because “he is young and socialist, and that is good because he is not old and not not-socialist”, his government was mediocre at best, and Jara represents contiunity to that government. Here you have an article thar summarises the major mistakes that lead to this. Although is in spanish, when I get home I’ll try to make a quick summary.

EDIT:

For context, you have to know that in Chile the left supports without restriction to all indigenous groups. In particular the Mapuche (the biggest one in the country). While it is important to take into account their necessities, the left sometimes make some mental gymnastics to even accept terrorism acts done by them. Particullary the Araucanía region has been a hotspot for these acts. For example, killing people in their own homes, and even policeman, all in name of “reclaiming their ancestral land”.

Having said that, the right has been saying for a couple of years that the Araucanía region has been subject to terrorism, while the left says “how can they be terrorists, they are just trying to get back what was theirs X years ago”.

Now to the information in the news article. I will try to just give the information of the document, and will try to let you know when I’m stating a personal opinion. Remember English is not my first language, and this text was made with no AI whatsoever:

Izkia Siches (who was Home Affairs minister) went to Temicuicui (in the Araucanía) just four days after assuming her position and was met with barricades, vehicles on fire and bullets (although nobody died).

The same minister accused the ex-president of bringing back inmigrants that were already deported, which was a lie.

One advisor of a minister had phone calls with the leader of one of the terrorist groups (CAM).

The government promised to end with the position of First Lady. For this, they initially changed the name of the position from First Lady to “Gabinete Irina Karamanos” (which translater roughly to Irina Karamanos’ cabinet”. For context, Irina Karamanos was the President’s girfriend at the moment.

The first constitutional process (personal opinion: It was progressive, but to a ridiculous extreme) failed.

He tried to appoint Nicolás Cataldo (Communist party) in a position related to Home Affairs, even though the dude had previously insulted the police in Twitter. Personal opinion: Criticize him for this one was was kind of ridiculous, the tweets were from 2011 xD.

He pardoned people that were arrested in the social outbreak back in 2019. Some of these pardoned people had quite a criminal record. Fot this, the Justice Minister was sacked.

There were leaked audios of the Chief of communicatios of the Foreign Affairs questioning Argentina’s ambassador in Chile.

A major Tax Reform was rejected.

There was a corruption case involving deputies and even the president’s psychiatrist. This case was called “Caso Convenios”.

Giorgio Jackson, ex-minister and friend of the president had some major controversies: like one involving “gas at fair price”, which ended up meaning that the state was paying high prices for every gas cylinder (~117 USD for each).

Computers were stolen from the building of the Ministry of Social Developement (Jackson was the minister then). These computers allegedly contained information regarding the “Caso Convenios”. Therefore, he ended up being sacked too.

The Valparaíso region suffered from major fires in February 2024. Nowdays nearly a 50% of houses were reconstructed. (Personal opinion: this is REALLY slow).

Six ministers attended to several reunions of Pablo Zalaquet (right wing politician), who is known for being a lobbyist. One of the ministers was the other candidate today, Jeanette Jara.

The government that has claimed being a feminist government, tried to shield Manuel Monsalve (higher up in the Home Affairs Ministry), while he was being accused of commiting sexual abuse. Boric did a press conference that was (in my opinion) questionable at best.

The government tried to buy Salvador Allende’s house, even though the Defense Minister (Maya Fernandez) is his granddaughter and Isabel Allende (a senator, and his daughter) were part of the government. This is unconstitutional.

They divided their voting coalitions in a (my opinion) stupid way. I won’t go into much details, but this ended up meaning that in the parlamentary elections the left had less seats than what they could’ve gotten.

In october this year, it was revealed that there was a calculation error in electricity bills that resulted in people paying more than what they shoul’ve. This resulted in a costitutional accusation to Diego Pardow, the (Ministry of Energy)