José Antonio Kast, the ultraconservative Catholic defender of Pinochet, begins to govern Chile

BarcelonaLa Moneda, the presidential palace of Chile, has a new host since Wednesday after the ultraconservative Catholic José Antonio Kast has taken office. The country thus materializes the political shift expressed at the polls in December and kicks off the most right-wing executive that Chile has had since the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. In fact, Kast, with a discourse similar to that of other far-right leaders in favor of deregulating the market and cutting public aid, and in which he conflates immigration and crime, has openly defended the 1973 coup against Salvador Allende.

The inauguration, held in the coastal city of Valparaíso, where Congress is located, was attended by leaders of the Latin American right and far right, such as the president of the neighboring country, Javier Milei, the president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, and the Honduran president, Corina Machado. Some left-wing presidents were also present, such as the Uruguayan president, Yamandú Orsi. The absence of Lula da Silva was notable; Although he was invited, the president of Brazil has canceled his participation in the event. According to the Brazilian government, this was due to scheduling conflicts; according to local media, it was due to the presence of Flávio Bolsonaro, leader of the opposition and son of former president Jair Bolsonaro.

The Chilean government that is just getting started is essentially made up of independent figures. Of the 24 ministers—13 men and 11 women—only four are currently affiliated with a political party, two of them with the Republican Party, the far-right party founded by Kast himself in 2019, with which he ran in the presidential elections five years ago. At that time, Gabriel Boric was better able to channel the discontent of Chileans expressed in what became known as the Social UprisingThe protests against the cost of living ended up challenging the country's constitution, inherited from the Pinochet dictatorship.

The contrast in the current change of government is stark. The government that was supposed to provide the country with a new constitution, drafted democratically, is leaving without having achieved this and is passing the baton to an executive that glorifies the figure and actions of the dictator. After an overwhelming majority of Chileans voted in 2020 in favor of a new constitution, neither an initial progressive text—considered at the time to be one of the most advanced constitutions in the world in terms of social rights—nor a subsequent conservative draft garnered enough support to pass.

The new government's ties to Pinochet

Chilean citizens rejected both proposals in a referendum, and now the newly elected government is reinforcing political ties with the past, even beyond the constitution drafted during the dictatorship, which remains in effect. Two of Kast's cabinet ministers are former lawyers for Pinochet. In a declaration of intent and a sign of what the government's actions may entail in the coming years, Kast has appointed Fernando Rabat, Pinochet's lawyer in several cases, including the scandal surrounding the dictator's secret bank accounts in the United States, to head the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights. Furthermore, the new president has placed Fernando Barros, who collaborated on Pinochet's defense when he was arrested in London in 1998 on the orders of Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, at the head of the Ministry of Defense. The magistrate, who would later suspend Batasuna's activities and be barred from authorizing wiretaps of the Gürtel network's leaders, was then accusing the Chilean dictator of crimes against humanity and torture for the murders committed by the regime he had led until eight years earlier. Following the rhetoric of the global far right, in the presentation of his cabinet at the end of January, Kast stressed that the Andean country needs "decisiveness" and "character" to end the "inertia" and "begin to rebuild Chile." Along the same lines, in a meeting with several heads of state this Tuesday before his inauguration, he emphasized that his government's actions and those of his ministers would be focused on making "every Chilean feel more peace and order." From today onwards, it remains to be seen whether the executive branch will succeed and, above all, how the public will react to the reforms promoted by the new government, especially the more than 5 million Chileans (41.8% of voters) who voted the Communist Party candidate, Jeannette Jara, in the elections in which Kast emerged victorious.