Chileans are called to the polls on Sunday, December 19 to elect their president for the next four years. The ultra-conservative José Antonio Kast, admirer of the Pinochet regime, tried to soften his program and faced several controversies during these last days of the campaign.
Order and freedom against communism, these are the watchwords of José Antonio Kast. Anti-abortion, anti-immigration and ultraliberal, this 55-year-old lawyer rose to the second round of the Chilean presidential election. But his admiration for the dictatorial regime of Augusto Pinochet which, according to him, has modernized the country, worries many Chileans, who fear a step backwards.
During a campaign trip, he was called a murderer in a working-class neighborhood. So, he tries to smooth his image, by eliminating the most controversial proposals from his program: he will ultimately not remove the ministry dedicated to women and the tax cuts will be less drastic than expected.
“Probably this will not compensate for the image that has taken hold”
But this strategy collapses, when a member of his party questions the right to vote of women. Stéphanie Alenda is a sociologist at Andrés Bello University in Santiago: “ It somehow brought to light some very worrying aspects of Kast’s program, which have to do with the theme of respect for minorities and so on. He tried to correct that by including a whole chapter on the Ministry of Women and pro-women public policies. But that will probably not compensate for the image that has taken hold of the ultra-conservative with very little respect for minorities. “
Kast is also caught up with his past: an Associated Press investigation revealed that his father, a German soldier, was indeed a member of the nazi party before migrating to Chile, which Kast had always denied.
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