Chile, the era of Kast begins, pro-Trump and nostalgic for Pinochet

The era of José Antonio Kast has begun in Chile. Three months after winning the elections by a landslide, the most conservative president in the democratic history of the young Chilean Republic has taken office. From today, Donald Trump knows he can count on two extremely loyal allies in Latin America: himself and Argentine President Javier Milei. A great friend of the Italian government as well: just a few weeks ago, before taking office, he already visited Giorgia Meloni. "I am here on behalf of the Italian government: the relationship between President Meloni and President Kast has deep roots," said Minister Annamaria Bernini, just landed in Chile representing the executive.

Also present were 12 heads of state, including, besides Milei, the King of Spain, Bolivian Rodrigo Paz, Daniel Noboa from Ecuador, and Nasry Asfura from Honduras. And the leader of the Venezuelan opposition and Nobel laureate, Maria Corina Machado. Two major absentees, both progressives: the President of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum. And especially the Brazilian president, Luis Inácio Lula Da Silva, annoyed by the prospect of being next to Flavio, the son of Jair Bolsonaro, his likely opponent in the upcoming October elections.

In just 20 minutes, at the end of a sober ceremony in the Congress of Valparaiso, the leadership of the Andean country passed from Gabriel Boric, a young progressive president, former leader of the student union, to a deeply Catholic sixty-year-old former lawyer, with nine children, anti-abortion, and above all a defender of the role that Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship played in stopping communism and reviving the national economy. An epochal shift after 36 years of governments led by social democrats, Christian democrats, and liberals, all critical of Pinochet.

The political trajectory of Kast, on the other hand, is completely opposite: he entered politics under the protective wing of the main ideologue of the dictator, Jaime Guzmán, and the party that nurtured him at the beginning of his career, the Independent Democratic Union (UDI), won the December elections promising to bring order and peace to the country in the face of "chaos", the same slogan used by Pinochet's campaign during the 1988 plebiscite, which the General lost. This time, however, Kast won. And he immediately stated his commitment to establish a "state of emergency government" to combat organized crime, insecurity, and illegal immigration.

While awaiting his reform plan, he has already sent some very clear political signals: in his government, he appointed two lawyers who defended the dictator to the Defense and Justice ministries. And the minister for equality is an evangelical anti-abortion activist. Finally, a detail that is only seemingly symbolic: in the official portrait that will be displayed starting today in all public buildings and police stations across the country, Kast wears the presidential sash with the national emblem in the center. Since the return of democracy, no president has adopted this institutional symbol: the last was the dictator Augusto Pinochet.

(by Marcello Campo - Ansa)