Republican Party far-right candidate José Antonio Kast has won Chile’s presidential run-off election, marking a major shift in the Latin American nation’s political landscape.
- Republican Party far-right candidate José Antonio Kast - who claims to be inspired by former U.S. President Donald Trump - has won Chile’s presidential run-off election, marking a major shift in the Latin American nation’s political landscape.
- Kast, who campaigned on promises to expel undocumented migrants and crack down on crime, secured 58 percent of the vote against left-wing candidate Jeannette Jara, who won 42 percent of the vote, in one of the most polarized elections in recent times.
- In the first round, Kast finished second behind Jara but dominated the December run-off with strong support from the right-wing camp.
- The 59-year-old conservative hardliner, who will take office on March 11, 2026, told supporters in his victory speech, “Chile needs order - in the streets, in the state, in the priorities that have been lost.”
José Antonio Kast
- Kast has run for president several times. He lost to incumbent President Gabriel Boric in the 2021 elections, receiving 44 percent of the vote. In the 2017 elections, he ran as an independent candidate, receiving nearly eight percent of the vote.
- After serving as a congressman for more than 10 years with the center-right Independent Democratic Union (UDI), he left the post in 2016.
- Then, in 2019, the 59-year-old leader founded the Republican Party, a more radical political entity that attracted voters frustrated by rising insecurity and economic stagnation.
- Kast was born in 1966 in the capital Santiago to German immigrants with links to Nazis.
- His father had been a member of the Nazi Party in Bavaria before migrating to Chile after World War II.
Chile
- The Republic of Chile is a country in western South America. It is the southernmost country in the world and the closest to Antarctica, stretching along a narrow strip of land between the Andes mountains and the Pacific Ocean.
- According to the 2024 census, Chile’s population was 18.5 million. The country covers an area of 756,102 square kilometers (291,933 square miles), with borders with Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage to the south.
- It also administers several Pacific islands, including Juan Fernández, Isla Salas y Gómez, Desventuradas, and Easter Island, and claims approximately 1,250,000 square kilometers (480,000 square miles) of Antarctic territory as the Chilean Antarctic Territory.
- The capital and largest city is Santiago, and the national language is Spanish. Chile is the world’s largest copper-producing country, with vast open-pit mines such as Escondida, Chuquicamata, and El Teniente, mainly located in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile.
