Arch-conservative José Antonio Kast likes to avoid comparisons. But the candidate whom polls suggest is poised to sweep Chile’s presidential election this weekend is sounding a lot like Donald Trump.
He’s promised pro-market tax reforms. He threw his weight behind Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro ahead of the ex-president’s trial over an attempted coup. He wants to take a hard line on crime.
Above all, he’s taken an aggressive stance on immigration, even saying his administration would push a larger share of migrants to self-deport than the US.
If he defeats communist candidate Jeannette Jara to win the single-term presidency, Kast will have to deliver on those promises fast.
He won’t want to end up like current President Gabriel Boric, who stormed to the top post in 2021 as the world’s youngest head of state — only to fail to implement his leftist program and rapidly become a lame duck.
Worse, he can’t afford to face the kind of youth-led protests sweeping the globe that have toppled governments in Nepal and Madagascar.
For now, his harsh migration line is already having an impact on Chile’s neighbors.
“If you don’t go on your own, we’ll detain you, we’ll expel you, and you’ll leave with only the clothes on your back,” Kast said in one video, framed by the Atacama Desert frontier near Chile’s northern border with Peru.
Peru’s president declared a state of emergency, fearing what could become a stampede of migrants rushing to flee Chile.
That never manifested, but it showed just how Kast’s aggressive rhetoric is already instilling fear. At campaign rallies, he ticks off the days migrants have left to depart before the March 11 inauguration.
Where Boric was once the face of the new left, Kast promises to embolden the radical right that is finding support across the Americas — with Trump as the lodestar. — Danielle Balbi