The Pinochet fan with a Nazi dad: meet Chile’s next president

皮诺切特粉丝,父亲是纳粹:认识智利的下任总统

Today in Focus

2025-12-18

23 分钟
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Santiago-based journalist John Bartlett charts how far-right José Antonio Kast managed to win election by landslide. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/infocus
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  • This is The Guardian.

  • Today, our fear has reshaped Chile and pushed it to the right.

  • It's historically been one of the safest countries in Latin America.

  • Little crime, socially stable, relatively wealthy.

  • Whisper it.

  • perhaps even a bit boring.

  • But on Sunday, Chile voted for José Antonio Cast.

  • The child of immigrants, Nazis, who fled Germany, this blonde,

  • blue-eyed Catholic father of nine was once considered too extreme and way too right-wing to be taken seriously by Chileans.

  • He's also weirdly nostalgic about General Pinochet, the man who violently ruled Chile for 17 years,

  • the dictator who, according to Cast, would vote for me if he were alive.

  • After José Antonio cast victory in presidential elections on Sunday,

  • his supporters took to the streets,

  • and won celebrated by waving a framed portrait of General Pinochet.

  • It's only been four years

  • since the country was celebrating a victory for the world's youngest president,

  • a 36-year-old socialist with a radical,

  • inclusive vision for what Chile could be, and yet cast has just won by a landslide.

  • What's he selling and how has he done it?

  • From The Guardian, I'm Nashin Iqbal.