{"id":288565,"date":"2025-11-17T09:11:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T09:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/288565\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T09:11:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T09:11:11","slug":"far-right-candidate-jose-antonio-kast-favourite-to-become-chiles-next-president-after-first-round-vote-chile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/288565\/","title":{"rendered":"Far-right candidate Jos\u00e9 Antonio Kast favourite to become Chile\u2019s next president after first round vote | Chile"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u200bThe ultraconservative lawyer, Jos\u00e9 Antonio Kast<\/a>, is in pole position to become Chile\u2019s next leader after advancing to the second round of the South American country\u2019s presidential election where he will face the Communist party candidate Jeannette Jara.<\/p>\n

With more than 70% of votes counted, Kast had secured about 24% of the vote in Sunday\u2019s first round vote<\/a>, having campaigned on hard-line promises to crack down on crime and immigration, while making a Donald Trump-style pledge to \u201cput Chileans first\u201d.<\/p>\n

Jara won slightly more support, with about 26% of votes going to the former labor minister for Chile\u2019s outgoing centre-left president, Gabriel Boric. But other right-wing candidates took almost 30% of votes meaning Kast is now the clear favourite to win the run-off on 14 December.<\/p>\n

Shortly after the result became clear on Sunday night, the radical libertarian Johannes Kaiser, another right-wing candidate who took about 14% of votes, announced he would endorse his far-right rival, \u201cbecause the alternative is Mrs Jara\u201d and Chile\u2019s \u201clefty impoverishers\u201d.<\/p>\n

Evelyn Matthei, another conservative who won about 13% of votes, quickly followed suit, citing the \u201cabsolutely uncontrolled arrival\u201d of migrants and claiming Chile needed a \u201csharp change of direction\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease support Kast \u2026 It\u2019s super important that this government does not remain in power. We have too many problems,\u201d Matthei told voters while on stage beside the frontrunner.<\/p>\n

Presidential candidate Jeannette Jara addresses supporters after early results in the general elections in Santiago, Chile. Photograph: Natacha Pisarenko\/AP<\/p>\n

Boric congratulated both candidates for making it to the second round after what Chile\u2019s president called a \u201cspectacular day of democracy\u201d.<\/p>\n

Speaking in the capital, Santiago, Jara thanked supporters and urged them not to forget that Chile was a great country, despite her right-wing rivals\u2019 attempts to claim it had gone to the dogs.<\/p>\n

Kast, 59, is making his third run for Chile\u2019s presidency, having lost to Boric in 2021, and has built his campaign around two key promises: combating crime and immigration.<\/p>\n

One of Kast\u2019s Trumpian plans \u2013 called Escudo Fronterizo (Border Shield) \u2013 foresees the construction of miles of ditches, barriers and walls along Chile\u2019s northern border to keep migrants out. More than half a million Venezuelans have come to Chile in recent years as a result of their country\u2019s economic collapse. \u201cChile has been invaded \u2026 but this is over,\u201d Kast declared in one campaign ad.<\/p>\n

In October, Kast celebrated that 1.6 million migrants had \u201cself-deported<\/a>\u201d from the US after 500,000 were deported under Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s [a proportion of] three-to-one. Here, we think that it can be four-to-one, or five-to-one,\u201d he said of his plans to create a hostile environment for immigrants in Chile.<\/p>\n

Another of Kast\u2019s key pledges is a crackdown on foreign criminals, inspired by El Salvador\u2019s authoritarian leader Nayib Bukele, who has imprisoned at least 2% of his country\u2019s adult population<\/a> since 2022. Public security has become one of the election\u2019s central issues thanks to an increase in crimes such as assassinations, kidnapping and extortion, although Chile remains one of the region\u2019s safest countries.<\/p>\n

Kast\u2019s progress will be celebrated in Washington, where Trump officials such as secretary of state Marco Rubio have hailed a conservative wave they believe is sweeping South America. Last month, neighbouring Bolivia elected a centre-right president<\/a> after 20 years of socialist rule. Rightwing candidates look well placed to win presidential elections in Colombia and Peru next year, while the leftwing veteran Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva faces a tough battle to hang on to the presidency in Brazil despite ex-president Jair Bolsonaro\u2019s recent sentencing<\/a> for masterminding a failed coup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u200bThe ultraconservative lawyer, Jos\u00e9 Antonio Kast, is in pole position to become Chile\u2019s next leader after advancing to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288566,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-288565","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288565","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288565"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288565\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288566"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288565"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288565"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288565"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}