With just over a week to go until the second round of Chile’s presidential elections, communist Janet Jara and far-right Jose Antonio Cast faced off against each other yesterday in a new debate in which they each raised the tone by addressing issues affecting other countries in the region such as Venezuela.
Chileans will return to the polls on December 14 after Jara, the first communist to lead a single coalition that includes all sectors of the Chilean left, obtained 26.85% of the votes in the first round, and Caste, founder of the Republican Party, retained 23.92% of support. In the penultimate face-to-face confrontation before the second round, the two candidates shined in moments of tension, as each of them directed harsh criticism of his opponent’s proposals and behaviors.
Regarding the US military deployment on the border with Venezuela, Jara insisted that the government of Nicolas Maduro is a “dictatorship”, but criticized the possible invasion of this country by the Americans. He added: “The solution proposed by Donald Trump seems very incorrect to me. It violates international law, and I will not support the invasion of another country.”
For his part, Cast answered the question with the phrase embodied by the Chilean shield: “By reason or by force,” as he put it. “People’s rights have been violated. They are immigrants who are here. Why are they here?” He said. The far right also cited the figure of El Salvador’s President Nayib Bukele when asked about the increase in murders of women in the country. Although he avoided detailing his proposals to combat violence against women, he used the Salvadoran example to stop murders. “Do you know today what the murder rate is in El Salvador, including cases of murder of women and family disputes? Zero, almost zero,” he said. He was blunt: “If all Chileans had to vote today and Bukele were on the ballot, they would choose Bukele.”