November 9, 2017. Chile prepares for the first round of presidential elections and Jose Antonio Kast (1966) faces what would be the first of three attempts to achieve The room and take the reins of government. A year and a half earlier, he had resigned from the traditional center-right party, the Independent Democratic Union (UDI), and now, when he appears on radio and television channels, he does not hide his view of the country’s recent political history.
“I think yes, (Augusto Pinochet) would vote for me“If he were alive, I think so,” he said calmly and sure of his answer. Following the dialogue with the journalist present, he decided to go even further, establishing a contrast between the dictatorship and the last government of Sébastien Pinerawho twice governed the South American country and died just over a year ago after a helicopter crash in Lake Ranco, where he used to spend his summer vacations.
“I am very direct, I think that Pinochet made a qualitative leap so that someone like Sebastián Piñera could develop a program. By separating the question of human rights, Pinochet’s government for the development of the country was better than that of Piñera», he adds.
Time progressed and his criticism from the right towards the sector to which he belonged continued and in some cases intensified, as when he declared, shortly after the social breakdown and the constitutional process which ended as a dead letter, that the administration of the businessman was the worst since that of Salvador Allende.
What had until then been unambiguous criticism, last Sunday evening, just a few minutes after the Electoral Service (Servel) confirmed its victory at the polls with more than 58% votes, became a tribute before the eyes of two of the sons of the former head of state. This is a change in style that is not only limited to his opinion on Piñera’s legacy, but also to some of his definitions of values, such as divorce, abortion and same-sex marriage. All hidden under the cover of order and security.
Under the slogan of creating an “emergency government” to stop the supposed stagnation of the economy and the progression of delinquency and organized crime, José Antonio Kast, founder and leader of the Republican Partybecame the president with the most votes in the history of Chile. And he did it on the third occasion, just like former President Allende, ideologically polar opposite, elected in 1970 and assassinated in the Palace three years later.
Links to Nazism and the military regime
Catholic and youngest of a family of ten children, the elected president of Chile is the son of Olga Rist and Michael Kast Schindle, former member of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. His father, who arrived in Chile in 1950 at the age of 26 after his country’s defeat in World War I, fought in France, Italy and the Crimean peninsula during the war.
Although he started out as a soldier, his military rank rose to lieutenant, and despite his capture by American forces, he managed to escape in April 1945, after jumping from the second floor of the school where he was being held. Although his first destination, after leaving his country, was Argentina, Chile ultimately proved to be the definitive option when it came to settling and start a family.
The truth is that the political roots of the new president are not limited only to his father, since the eldest of his brothers, Miguel Kastalso toured the public stage. First, collaborate with the Christian Democratic Party (PDC), the same one which hosted presidencies like those of Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle or Patricio Aylwin. Later, from the Gremial Movement (MG) and the UDI, the same groups that José Antonio himself would later join.
Elected president of the School of Economics and later secretary general of the Federation of Catholic University Students (FEUC), the elder Kast decided to continue taking steps in the exercise of power. It was after the September 1973 coup that a call from one of his closest associates during his university studies dissuaded his aspirations to work in Mexico and he arrived in Mexico. Ministry of Planning (Mideplan) of the regime. He was also part of what is called Chicago Boysa school that economist Milton Friedman helped found in the United States and who led the Central Bank.
It was from these decisions that the fate of the Kast family and in particular that of José Antonio was determined. united with the work of Pinochet and his entourage. Not only because of family ties, but also because of the different positions the president-elect took to defend the armed intervention and the 17 years of government that followed. In addition to having voted “Yes” in the 1989 plebiscite, he questioned the legal proceedings to which certain soldiers, denounced for human rights violations, were subject. One of them, Miguel Krasnoff, is today imprisoned in Punta Peuco.
right-wing rebel
As happened to the firstborn of the Kast-Rist family, José Antonio was trained in the Catholic University (UC)as a lawyer, and also actively collaborated with the trade union movement, sealing a relationship of trust with the man who is recognized as the “intellectual father” of the Pinochet dictatorship. The founder of the UDI, drafter of the current political Constitution and assassinated in 1990 by left-wing terrorists from the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (FPMG), while he was leaving to teach law in a university class, Jaime Guzmán.
It was while at this university that Kast held various student positions, such as secretary of the Student Federation and representative on the Superior Council. He was also defeated in his attempt to chair the highest student assembly.
The UDI, founded by Guzmán and which sponsored the failure of Evelyn Matthei’s candidacy in the last presidential elections, served as Kast’s political home until May 2016, when, preceded by two attempts to run the store and change the course of the community – which until then had been led by the so-called ColonelsJovino Novoa, Pablo Longueira, Andrés Chadwick and Juan Antonio Coloma – decided to abandon activism and undertake a new project. The one which, first, was translated into the Republican Action Movement and, secondly, in the Republican Partywhich brought him to executive power in March 2026 and which benefits from a large bench of parliamentarians.
Always frontal with the left and often ruthless with the center-right that he joined years ago, what awaits the new president, in addition to meeting the expectations that his next government arouses among citizens, is to convene groups that go beyond his political house to ensure the governability that the country demands. The challenge seems immense and it will be the first months, we note, which will help to mark your destiny.
About The Author
