Chile is afraid. Only 39% of its inhabitants feel safe walking alone at night, which places it in 138th place, just behind Zimbabwe, in a survey of 144 territories carried out by the American company Gallup. The main concerns concern crime, assaults and robberies, especially among the most vulnerable and among those who are pessimistic about the economic situation. “The country has changed, the streets are no longer the same as before,” declared the national public prosecutor, Ángel Valencia, in August, following the kidnapping of a businessman. The far right José Antonio Kast talks about that Chile. He addresses them with his proposal for “an emergency government” to deal with “harsh measures” with a new crime marked by more violent murders that double those of ten years ago.
These elections are taking place in a context in which 24% of Chileans identify with the right, the highest level in history, according to the survey by the Center for Public Studies (CEP), 36% with the center and 20% with the left. Also peaking is support that, in some circumstances, an authoritarian regime might be preferable (23%).
At Kast’s campaign closeout on Tuesday, a video was shown of statements the Republican had made in the past under the motto “when no one dared, he dared.” There were two that elicited the biggest screams and applause. His proposal to install a ditch on the northern border to crack down on irregular immigration and his support for the Carabineros in the context of the social epidemic of 2019, when trust in the institution was pulverized by human rights violations during the riots, according to documents from several international organizations. At the time, 35% of Chileans approved of the police management, while today it reaches 75%, according to data from pollster Cadem.
During the election campaign, on more than one occasion Kast celebrated the fact that the left-wing candidate, Jeannette Jara, refers to the Carabineros as such and not as pacosthe derogatory name given to uniformed police in Chile, reminding him that he had seen a T-shirt with the symbol of the epidemic, the black matapacos, in reference to a dog with a red scarf around its neck, it became known for barking and attacking Carabineros. The Communist Party, the formation in which Jara operates, played an active role in the mobilisations, although it did not even control the streets.
In the Republican Party there are those who explain Kast’s good position in the presidential elections – everything indicates that he will go to the run-off with Jara – in the way in which “the trauma” of the social outbreak is permeated which, in addition to the massive protests, was also marked by acts of violence that undermined Chilean institutions and democracy. If in December 2019 55% declared they supported the demonstrations, today that figure is only 23%, according to the survey by the Center for Public Studies (CEP). Then, the Republicans point out, voters look to the one who has always opposed him: Kast. It was even removed from the Peace Agreement, signed by the presidents of the political parties that guaranteed an institutional solution to the social crisis, in the peak days of the crisis. That pact led to the failure of two constitutional processes. And although the second was dominated by republican members, this did not seem to bother them, because they always maintained that they had no problems with the Constitution inherited from the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) which continued to be in force.
To understand who the voters of the Chilean far right are, the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES), linked to the German Social Democratic Party, prepared a study in which, on the basis of surveys, it profiled them and compared them with the supporters of Evelyn Matthei’s candidacy, from the traditional right. Kast attracts younger people, those of lower socioeconomic status, from small towns, and mostly men. Matthei, for his part, to women, the over 45s, university students, the upper middle class and the Santiago metropolitan region. In the hard vote Matthei has the support of the majority among women (61.7%), while Kast concentrates his support among men (55.6%). In the case of evangelicals, a religion that has given wings to the far right in other countries such as Brazil, the Republicans have 36.1% of the vote, compared to 15.7% for Matthei.
Catholic University academic Cristóbal Rovira, author of the report, told EL PAÍS: “It was very clear that people who join the libertarian Johannes Kaiser or Kast do not have a charismatic connection with the leader, but rather support those who best represent their ideas.” These ideas are strengthening family, security and patriotism. In addition to the family and values crisis they perceive, they say the country suffers from a crime and justice crisis that has not been addressed correctly or effectively “due to the implementation of soft and low-impact measures”.
Strategically, in this campaign he avoided issues related to individual freedoms or the defense of the legacy of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), which were read as one of the reasons for his defeat against the left-wing militant Gabriel Boric in the run-off of the previous elections. His speech was almost adamant about security, immigration control and the economy. This week, however, in the southern city of Concepción, in the Biobío region, where the country’s largest evangelical population is located, he said: “We will still talk about God, homeland and family.” He also reiterated it, although he does not comment the values agendahe has not changed his mind: “I am a man of convictions, I defend life from conception to death natural,” he said in the latest TV debate on Monday. This means that he maintains his rejection of, for example, the morning-after pill, same-sex marriage, abortion and divorce law.
Kast also committed himself to the electoral campaign to speak to the 60% who disapprove of the Boric government. In his speeches he usually refers to a “failed government” and to Jara, representative of nine left and centre-left parties, as the candidate of “continuity”. He accuses the former labor minister of the left-wing administration’s waiting lists at health centers, the admission of undocumented migrants or the increase in electricity bills. “Jara is Boric and Boric is Jara,” he said in his closing campaign on Tuesday. At that same meeting, they sang one of their jingles which makes a play on words with the number five, the one that corresponds to it on the ballot paper: “Vote five, vote Kast, vote Kast five, without comunism, without comunism”, aimed at voters who fear the arrival of a member of the Communist Party at Moneda.
