Pinochetism Returns to Power in Chile
José A. Kast’s resounding victory in the runoff election is bound to have a profound influence on Chile. A solid, neo-fascist, extreme right-wing force consolidated as a result of the convergence of two radical variants of Pinochetism —one led by Kast and the other, even more extreme, by Johannes Kaiser— to which rushed to join the standard-bearer of a political fiction called the “democratic right,” embodied by the former mayor of Providencia, Evelyn Matthei, the supposed heir to Sebastián Piñera’s legacy.
According to Chilean political analyst Jaime Lorca, compulsory voting—previously optional in Chile—channeled social discontent with Gabriel Boric’s government toward Pinochetism and its allies. Keep in mind that Boric’s approval ratings in the second half of his term hovered around a meager 30 percent. Issues such as insecurity, hatred of immigrants Trump style (especially Venezuelans), and inflation —close to 4 percent annually— were stirred up demagogically by Kast, a man as careless with figures and statistics as Javier Milei.
In an attempt to convince voters of the catastrophic dimensions of insecurity, he went so far as to say in his debate with the ruling coalition candidate Jeannete Jara that in Chile “1.200.000 people are murdered every year.” When he realized his mistake, he spoke then of 1.2 billion people murdered in Chile, whose total population is 19 million. The actual figure for 2024 was 1,207 homicides, a rate of 6.0 homicides per 100.000 inhabitants, a figure comparable to that of the United States and slightly higher than that of Argentina.
Despite this, the mainstream media on both sides of the Andes exaggerate insecurity in order to use fear to attract votes to the fascist parties and organizations in both countries. In any case, blunders of this kind were common in Kast’s campaign but, as in Argentina, also in Chile there is a large sector of the electorate that votes because it is an obligation. This is a public which is not interested in politics at all and is not bothered by the nonsense that a candidate may utter. Issues such as those we are analyzing account for the surprising number of votes obtained in the first electoral round by the People’s Party, led by Franco Parisi, which scraped together 20 percent of the votes and was just four percentage points behind Kast. A large part of this electoral turnout —85 percent of the registered voters— made up mainly of new voters who go to the polls because voting is compulsory, is deeply influenced by the ideology of anti-politics, hyper-individualism, and contempt for anything that smacks of collective action, and in the runoff they leaned in favor of Kast. Some, perhaps, threw aside the deep-rooted anti-communism that prevails in Chile and supported Jara’s candidacy, but not to the extent necessary to prevent a catastrophic defeat.
What can we expect from a government headed by a fascist like Kast? Brutal cuts in social spending, a re-evaluation of the progress made in relation to women’s rights, and a redefinition of Chile’s international alliances. He will surely attempt to deepen the economic model developed during the Pinochet dictatorship, the foundations of which remained untouched by Chile’s long and unfinished democratic transition. Unfinished because the power relations and concentration of wealth that emerged after the fateful September 11, 1973, far from being reversed by the exercise of democracy, were consolidated and reinforced by successive governing coalitions. But in the context of the new US National Security Doctrine, Kast will be pressured by Washington to undertake the arduous task of cooling his country’s warm relations with China. But the Asiatic giant is Chile’s largest trading partner and the one with which a key Free Trade Agreement was signed in 2005.
On the other hand, the composition of the Chilean parliament could be a significant obstacle able to curb Kast’s foreseeable excesses. The Senate is divided equally, in two halves and it would be extremely difficult for Kast to obtain the 4/7 of the votes (57 percent) needed to reform the Constitution in the Chamber of Deputies. In any case, the formation of a government of this type represents an enormous challenge for the ruling -and almost defunct- Frente Amplio (Broad Front) and the extremely heterogenous progressive camp in general. As in Argentina after Milei’s victory, these forces face a fundamental challenge: redefining a global project for the country, devising a new narrative, designing a concrete agenda for government, revitalizing grassroots organizations, mobilizing their members, and resolving the always thorny issue of political direction and leadership.
These are urgent tasks that cannot be postponed, because any delay will result in the creation of a set of historical and structural conditions for the relaunch of a long-lasting neo-fascist political cycle that will cause serious harm to our peoples. Yet, it would be a crucial mistake to give in to pessimism and believe that yesterday’s defeat is definitive. However, such a resounding setback requires an effort of self-criticism that, among other things, realizes that the formula of “light progressivism” that invite our peoples to politically advance along an illusory “wide middle avenue” equidistant from the left and right only serve to produce further frustrations and throw open the doors of the democratic state to the advent of the extreme right or colonial neo-fascism. In times as immoderate as these, marked by a profound capitalist crisis and the imperialist offensive and the brutal Trump Corollary hanging over the heads of our peoples, moderation, far from being a virtue, becomes an unforgivable vice.
This article was produced for Página 12 and Globetrotter.
The post Pinochetism Returns to Power in Chile appeared first on CounterPunch.org.