US EditionConservative Kast's Victory in Chile Suggests a Hard-Right, Pro-Trump Surge Across Latin America
Kast won by capitalizing on crime, migration, and economic frustrations with 59% of votes, reflecting a broader right-wing trend in Latin America this year.
- On Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, José Antonio Kast won the presidential runoff, and he met with President Boric at La Moneda palace on Monday, Dec. 15, 2025.
- Voters angered by rising crime and migration chose Kast amid frustration with a dispiriting economy, while President Gabriel Boric's legislative defeats, corruption scandal and organized crime fueled backlash.
- Experts note Kast's alignment with regional hard‑right figures; supporters at his Santiago rally waved American flags, wore red 'Make Chile great again' caps and displayed Milei slogans.
- The result fits a wider continental shift this year, with regional hard-right leaders hailing Kast's win while President Claudia Sheinbaum urged left-wing leaders to learn from defeat.
- Kast's record shows longstanding conservative positions, including nostalgia for Pinochet, opposition to same-sex marriage, and support for an abortion ban, yet he campaigned as a moderate defending free-market institutions over 35 years.
64 Articles
64 Articles
The victory in the elections last Sunday in Chile of the right-wing candidate José Antonio Kast (Republican Party) represents the first victory of the moderate right strengthened by the ultra-right since the return to democracy in the Andean country 35 years ago.Kast, in his third attempt, sought to get closer to voters in the center through a more measured and also more concrete discourse.The key to understanding this victory goes through an un…
The victory of José Antonio Kast in Chile has fallen like a jug of cold water on the Latin American left, but it has also revealed the different ways of digesting the coup from power. In Brazil, Lula da Silva in Brazil merely congratulated the representative of the Chilean extreme right, without reading or warning. The Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum, went a step further and appealed to the “reflection” of progressive movements to understan…
Chile elects hardline president, joining Latin American neighbours in swing to the right
Chile on Sunday voted in far-right leader Jose Antonio Kast, making it the latest country in Latin America to ditch the left. As many voters are looking for solutions to economic woes, US President Donald Trump has also upped the ante vowing to pull US support for some countries if leftist candidates are elected.
InsideNoVA.com
Chile follows Latin American neighbors in lurching right
Chile has became the latest Latin American country to ditch the left after voters, driven by fears of crime and migration, elected on Sunday their first far-right leader since the end of a vicious military dictatorship in 1990.
Associated Press News
Conservative Kast's victory in Chile suggests a hard-right, pro-Trump surge across Latin America
Chile has become the latest country in Latin America to veer toward the right, electing a deeply conservative veteran politician who has long attracted comparisons to Donald Trump.
Chile Turns Hard To The Right: Tough-On-Crime, Anti-Immigration...
In an election where the decisive themes echoed mounting concerns in the Americas and Europe, a conservative who's vowed to crack down on illegal immigration and crime trounced his Communist opponent in Sunday's presidential election in Chile. The result confirms a major political current that now has many Latin American countries embracing right-wing politics. With 98% of the votes counted, 57-year-old José Antonio Kast was coasting to a 58%-to…
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