Jose Antonio Kast won Chile’s presidential election on Sunday, leveraging voter fears over rising crime and migration to take the country to its sharpest rightward shift since the end of dictatorship in 1990.
Kast secured 58.30% of the vote in a runoff with leftist candidate Jeannette Jara, who was at 41.70%, with more than 95% of the ballots counted.
“Democracy has spoken loud and clear,” Jara said as she conceded. “I have communicated with Jose Antonio Kast and wished him success for the good of Chile.”
Kast has been a consistent right-wing hardliner throughout his decades-long political career. He has proposed building border walls, deploying the military to high-crime areas, and deporting all migrants in the country illegally.
His victory marks the latest win for the resurgent right in Latin America. He joins Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa, El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, and Argentina’s Javier Milei. In October, the election of centrist Rodrigo Paz ended almost two decades of socialist rule in Bolivia.
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