On the global political map, Republican José Antonio Kast’s ideological home is the far right, a label the Chilean presidential candidate denies. A few days after Donald Trump became president of the United States for the second time last January, Kast declared: “Our ideas have already won in the United States, in Italy, in Argentina (…) and in Chile, we will win too. » These are all countries led by profiles that agree with each other, but with different styles. One of the questions hanging over a possible triumph of the right-wing standard-bearer in the second round of Sunday’s elections is what type of leader he will be and what his attachment to institutions will be. Taking the same list of reference governments, the question is whether, in the event of victory at the polls, it will be a Donald Trump, a Giorgia Meloni, a Javier Milei or a cocktail that brings together a bit of all these profiles.
In the first days after his passage to the second round – behind the left-wing candidate, the communist Jeannette Jara – Kast had telephone conversations with different international leaders, including Meloni and Milei, on “opportunities” to strengthen the corresponding bilateral relations. The fact that the three right-wing candidates – the traditional one, that of Kast and the libertarian – totaled 50% of the votes in the first round injected a good dose of optimism into the ultraconservative milieu, which appears as a favorite in the polls published before the ban, 15 days ago.
After his defeat in the 2021 elections against leftist Gabriel Boric, Kast chaired the Political Network for Values (2022-2024), an ultra-conservative network that connects politicians and activists from Europe, Latin America, the United States and Africa, opposed to “radical feminism”, what they describe as “gender ideology”, homosexuals and, above all, abortion. His predecessor in power was Katalin Novák, the former president of Hungary who was forced to resign in 2024 due to the scandal generated by the pardon granted to the receiver of a pedophile.
Kast has participated in summits of far-right world leaders, such as the Conservative Action Political Conference (CPAC) in the United States, or the Vox convention in Madrid, where he coincided with the Spaniard Santiago Abascal, the Argentine President Milei, the Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele or the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, so many countries he visited during his campaign to adopt his ideas in Chile. During one of his campaign closings before the first round, Kast announced that members of his party would return to El Salvador, to Italy “to see the prisons and how they lock up the gangsters”, and to Hungary and the Dominican Republic to “see how they closed their borders”.
Chileans’ main concern is crime and Bukele, for example, is the second highest-rated international leader (71%), according to the Cadem survey, behind Canadian Mark Carney (76%). Kast himself said last week during a debate, speaking about the fight against homicides and feminicides, that if the Salvadoran were on the ballot, “all Chileans would elect Bukele.”
Experts, however, see Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni as a possible compass for a possible Kast government. The leader of the post-fascist Brothers of Italy party received him in Rome last September and, a few weeks ago, when the Republican went to the second round, they spoke by telephone. Political scientist Alfredo Joignant affirms that this meeting reveals that Kast remains alongside the ultra-conservative world leader, who has not involved himself, “at least in a relevant way, in this cultural war” against universities, as Trump did, “nor in the illiberal history of Orbán”.
However, warns Joignant, if the right-wing candidate largely wins over Jara, he could be tempted to enter into the cultural war with the study houses, the media and the foundations. Of course, the academic emphasizes, Kast “is not a fascist, he is the last Pinochetista”. The Chilean journalist and writer Ascanio Cavallo also does not see Kast as a Trump or a Milei: “He is rather a conservative, a traditionalist whose project is to replace the values which, according to him, have been trampled by the unconsciousness of the left or the perversions of ideology.” There is consensus that Kast’s style is neither eccentric nor outsider political, like most American far-right leaders, but is the mirror of the figures of the phenomenon observed in Europe.
For the anthropologist Pablo Ortúzar, a right-wing intellectual, Kast does not belong to this group of far-right leaders who, in a certain way, he emphasizes, would be linked to the avant-garde ideologies of the 1920s and their subsequent evolution. The academic believes that Kast will not do this, since he does not intend to close Congress, “nor dismantle the balances and counterweights essential to the functioning of the Republic.” And he says his own party, the Republicans, has split further to the right, as is the case with Johannes Kaiser’s National Libertarian Party, realizing that its approaches can be extreme.
The question of the relationship that Kast will maintain with the institutions was the subject of analysis by the academy during this second round. Intellectuals like Carlos Peña have suggested that the Republican embodies “illiberal” thinking, in the sense that he “really does not believe that the principles of a liberal democracy are unconditional and uncompromising,” while scholar José Joaquín Brunner has argued that by hiding the sharpest edges of his values agenda, Kast seeks to obtain “the democratic mandate necessary to implement an agenda that, at its foundations, is illiberal.”
Kast’s democratic record was also highlighted in the debate. The Republican, for example, called for congratulating Boric in 2021, when 55% of the votes had been counted. “He deserves all our respect and our constructive collaboration,” he then declared on social networks. And his current proposals do not avoid the administrative powers that would correspond to his position.
Political scientist Cristóbal Bellolio has suggested that the Republican may be “illiberal” in another, less procedural sense. Political liberalism is based on “the belief that government is not called upon to determine what is the correct way of life for all citizens in a pluralistic society,” Bellolio said in Ex-anteand added: “Kast’s intellectual environment does not seem to share this assumption. On the contrary, he maintains that the time has come to speak openly about God again and to re-imbue public life with Christian values,” he added. Cristóbal Rovira, professor at the Institute of Political Science at the Catholic University and specialist in the phenomenon of the extreme right, goes further and believes that respect for institutions could be threatened if Kast triumphed.
“We know that today democracy is slowly dying, it’s not that institutions are collapsing overnight,” Rovira says. To argue, he gives the example of how the Republican asked Boric to give up the economic benefits that will correspond to him when he is a former president. “When you break a tacit agreement in the system, nothing happens, but it’s different if you break 10, which is the fear that Kast arrives at La Moneda,” he emphasizes. “In the case of three-ground abortion, for example, it could make it difficult to provide the service, without going through Congress. Through executive regulations, you can go ahead and restrict rights,” he adds.
Although Kast, unlike his two previous attempts, did not explicitly state his positions against women’s reproductive rights, same-sex marriage, same-sex adoption or gender identity, among others, he said he maintains the same beliefs as always. In the most radical wing of the right, there are already voices who advocate, in addition to the three pillars of the campaign (security, economy and migration), discussing the issues of the cultural battle in Congress. This flag was raised by the libertarian Kaiser, who came fourth (13.9%) in the first round, and made his entry into a possible Kast administration conditional on an agreement on “common minimums”.
The Republican Party has never governed and its negotiating power is weak in Congress. If they win on Sunday, it still remains to be written how they will govern with the traditional right, which they called in the past the “cowardly right”, and with the libertarian wing, the most extreme, which has declared not wanting to renounce its convictions.
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