SANTIAGO, Chile — Chile has become the latest country in Latin America to veer toward the right, electing a conservative firebrand who has long attracted comparisons to Donald Trump.
The president-elect, Jose Antonio Kast, has expressed nostalgia for the 17-year military dictatorship of the late Gen. Augusto Pinochet, opposed the legalization of same-sex marriage and advocated in recent years for a constitutional ban on abortion.
Those stances, which some say sabotaged Mr. Kast’s previous presidential bids in the increasingly liberal country, didn’t seem to matter in Sunday’s election.
Instead, the 59-year-old political veteran won a landslide victory by tapping into a deep well of resentment at the status quo in a country whiplashed by an unprecedented rise in organized crime and disappointed by the great expectations that President Gabriel Boric raised but will leave unfulfilled.
Experts say this reflects the pervasive anti-incumbent mood that has gripped South America and, significantly, boosted the right at time when Trump is seeking to influence the region’s political future.
It’s a dramatic turn from only two decades ago, when the commodities boom brought to power the so-called “pink tide” of left-wing leaders, like the late socialist icon Hugo Chavez, who whipped up voters by railing against U.S. imperialism and vowing to redistribute their nations’ wealth.
“The last decade, it’s been rough,” said Steven Levitsky, a Harvard political scientist. “And the people who get blamed for stagnant economies, rising crime — or, at least, rising perceptions of crime — and not insignificant corruption are those who’ve been in power, and that’s the left.”
Across South America this year alone, voters strengthened the mandates given to anarcho-capitalist President Javier Milei in Argentina and iron-fisted President Daniel Noboa in Ecuador, rather than return their countries to the left-wing traditions that held sway previously.
In Bolivia, voters outraged over corruption and economic crisis elected right-wing President Rodrigo Paz in October and ended nearly two decades of socialist rule.
In Peru, demands for a ruthless approach to organized crime have caused political chaos and empowered the country’s right-wing politicians ahead of a presidential election next year.
Last week, partial results in Honduras’ paralyzed presidential vote showed a conservative former mayor endorsed by Mr. Trump and his right-wing sportscaster rival deadlocked in a stunning rebuke of the incumbent left-wing government.
Then, on Sunday, voters traumatized by insecurity, angry about uncontrolled migration and frustrated with a dispiriting economy chose Mr. Kast over Jeannette Jara, his communist rival from the center-left governing coalition who failed to persuade them that she was something other than the continuity candidate.
Experts say the new Latin American hard right underscores Mr. Trump’s influence.
Speaking to reporters in Washington, Mr. Trump praised Kast on Monday as “a very good person,” adding, “I look forward to pay(ing) my respects to him.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio later said he held a phone call with Mr. Kast to discuss “expanding economic ties and ending illegal immigration.”
Like Mr. Milei and Brazil’s ex-President Jair Bolsonaro, Mr. Kast has been a fixture on the global speaking circuit of the Conservative Political Action Conference, decrying socialism, lambasting “gender ideology” and vowing the mass deportations of immigrants.
“The far right is not a majority anywhere, it’s usually 25-30% of electorates, but it’s punching above its weight because it has a real ideological project,” said Mr. Levitsky. “They’ve got political momentum right now, and that clearly helped in Chile.”
Mexico stands out as an exception to the regional trend. President Claudia Sheinbaum, who was ushered into office last year by her hugely popular mentor, ex-President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has enjoyed soaring approval thanks to her association with López Obrador and measured handling of a volatile relationship with Mr. Trump.
But while Mr. Milei and other regional conservative leaders hailed Mr. Kast’s win as another milestone in their ideological movement’s continental sweep, Ms. Sheinbaum on Monday urged fellow left-wing leaders to learn from defeat.
“This is a moment of reflection,” she said. “We have to analyze what happened in Chile.”
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