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Jose Antonio Kast, presidential candidate during an election rally in Santiago, Chile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Claudio Santana \/ Getty<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Jose Antonio Kast, presidential candidate during an election rally in Santiago, Chile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By Valentina Fuentes and Philip Sanders \/ Bloomberg News<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SANTIAGO
Petroleumworld 12 14 2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the campaign trail, he has a formal bearing. Father of nine, opponent of gay marriage and abortion, the light-haired, blue-eyed lawyer vows to slash taxes and dig a deep ditch against immigration. Chile\u2019s election this Sunday, he says, is a contest between liberty and totalitarianism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jose Antonio Kast, 55, considered a fringe candidate four years ago when he took just 8% of the vote, is today within shouting distance of winning the presidency. If he beats opponent Gabriel Boric — the race is close with many undecided — he would be, by far, the most conservative president of Chile in three decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cThe Kast phenomenon stems at least partly from the exceptional challenges that Chile has faced in the last two years,\u201d said Claudia Heiss, the head of political science at the Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Chile. She pointed to violent demonstrations over inequality followed by the pandemic, saying they \u201cfed an agenda of the extreme right promising order and security.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A lawyer and former legislator, Kast is sometimes called the Donald Trump of the Andes and compared to Brazil\u2019s Jair Bolsonaro. These are somewhat misleading analogies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Articulate and poised, Kast isn\u2019t a showboat or rabble rouser. When he shouted \u201cViva Chile!\u201d to supporters after his victory in the first round last month, he sounded more awkward than inspiring. When asked in a recent TV interview whether his opponent is a \u201cpuppet\u201d of the Communist Party, he demurred, saying there was no reason to use insulting language — although he doesn\u2019t hesitate to do so when speaking of communists. He calls himself \u201cthe candidate of common sense.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The son of German immigrants and brother of a former minister for the late dictator Augusto Pinochet, Kast represents to some the voice of order and security and to others an embrace of inequality and authoritarianism. He has said that if military dictator Augusto Pinochet were alive today, the general would vote for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Boric, his opponent, could hardly be more different. A 35-year-old former student leader, the bearded and tattooed Boric, allied with the Communist Party, wants higher taxes, greater state involvement and freely available abortion. He would be Chile\u2019s most left-wing head of state since the 1970s, when socialist Salvador Allende was overthrown by Pinochet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In many ways, the electoral contest between the two suggests that 30 years of moderate politics and exceptional economic growth fueled by foreign investment hasn\u2019t pushed aside the fury and divisions of those battles half a century ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe ghost of communism in a country like Chile has a great impact,\u201d said Kenneth Bunker, founder of Tresquintos, a political analysis website, explaining Kast\u2019s many references to the far left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tensions broke to the surface in late 2019 when the country was wracked by a wave of protests against inequality. The government lost control of the streets and called up the army for the first time since the dictatorship. Meanwhile, the arrival of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans has added to shantytowns and stoked local resentment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kast has reached out to leaders abroad who share his outlook, meeting with aides to President Andrzej Duda of Poland, former deputy prime minister of Italy Matteo Salvini and officials in Spain\u2019s Vox party. Two weeks ago, he visited Washington and saw no one in the Biden administration but met with Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While his aides think comparisons to Trump and Bolsonaro are simplistic, they do admire some of their policies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe have a favorable view of Trump\u2019s economic policies and Bolsonaro\u2019s clarity in confronting crime,\u201d said Rojo Edwards, a Kast friend and elected senator from his Republican Party. Kast\u2019s victory celebration last month featured a number of supporters sporting Trump hats. Kast declined to be interviewed for this article.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Recently he tacked to the center in a search for votes, pledging to step up the fight against global warming, defend women\u2019s rights and cut taxes more gradually than originally planned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Friends describe Kast as close to his nine children and two grandchildren. He met his wife, Pia Adriasola, when they were law students at Chile\u2019s Catholic University in the late 1980s. In a 2017 interview, Adriasola, considered by family members to be even more conservative than her husband, said it wasn\u2019t easy to build a relationship with someone as \u201chermetic\u201d and uncommunicative as Kast. She recalled that a priest played a key role in advising them as a couple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kast\u2019s views on religious matters are actually more in line with the growing Evangelical community than with many Roman Catholics in Chile who\u2019ve grown more liberal, according to Mauricio Morales, a political scientist at Chile\u2019s Universidad de Talca. That\u2019s why in this campaign he\u2019s downplayed those issues and focused on law and order, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And on liberty. As Kast put it at a recent campaign event, \u201cDemocracy and freedom are what distinguish us from the rival political project.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n _____________![\"\"\/](\"http:\/\/www.petroleumworld.com\/baners_2020\/horizontal_motorola_dec_english_Add-Mineria-04-EN.jpg\")
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By Valentina Fuentes and Philip Sanders from Bloomberg News<\/p>\n\n\n\n