Kast, the conservative onslaught that bothers Chile with its orderly speech

With a calm voice and a tone that seems even conciliatory, the ultra-conservative Chilean candidate José Antonio Kast promises a strong hand against crime, speaks of order, vindicates the dictatorship, promises economic growth and an efficient State. In times of uncertainty, grant certainties.

And with that strategy, hoisting the flag of a right “without complex”, He grew strongly in the campaign for Sunday’s elections in Chile until he became the leader of the preferences, slightly surpassing the left-wing candidate, Gabriel Boric, with whom he would contest the ballot.

But he dismisses – at least publicly – the results of the polls, which he has criticized so many times. “We have never been guided by surveys”, “if i was guided by the experts i would probably not be here“, has said.

One of the axes of his campaign is the “reconstruction“, Economic growth and”restoration”Of order in a country hit by the social outbreak of October 2019, which gave rise to a wave of massive social protests against inequality and the subsequent coronavirus pandemic.

“Let us dare to dream. It is the hour of hope, the hour of reconstruction. To those who took their resources from Chile, I hope they bring them back”, Affirmed these days in a meeting of the presidential candidates with businessmen.

Kast says that it is necessary to strengthen small and medium-sized entrepreneurs, assures that he will defend the free market and that he will fight corruption. “Here the right and the left have used the state as a booty”, He said on the same occasion.

Kast attacks the demonstrations that, with much less force, continue to take place every week in the center of Santiago and that usually end in acts of violence; he questions the work of the convention that drafts a new Constitution, criticizes the entire political class and says that Congress is “a circus”.

He also promises a strong hand to confront the Mapuche indigenous conflict that is shaking the south of the country, assuring that it is “terrorism”. He opposes abortion, which in Chile It is only allowed on certain grounds, and it raised controversy when it recently proposed the construction of a “ditch” to curb illegal immigration.

“Every time there is an act of violence in Santiago or La Araucanía, Kast goes up one point”Says political analyst Cristóbal Bellolio, who states that Kast’s strategy is to become a right-wing leader and overcome recent electoral results in the sector, regardless of whether or not he wins this time.

Already in 2017 he came fourth in the first round of the presidential elections.

The candidate of the Christian Social Front pact has been compared with the Brazilian Jair Bolsonaro and the American Donald Trump, but he dismisses those comparisons because he says that the reality of each country is different.

“We want to unite, we want to dialogue with everyone, beyond political color ”, he said before the businessmen. “I am a direct and frank person, but I am always respectful”He insisted.

55-year-old lawyer, married, father of nine and Catholic, closet he worries about distancing himself from the unpopular government of the center-right Sebastián Piñera, whose candidate Sebastián Sichel lost steam seeing how emblematic members of his sector supported the competitive candidate of the hard right.

His brother Michael was minister of Augusto Pinochet and he himself claims the “economic legacy”Of the dictatorship, which he defends without ambiguity. Before the 2017 elections he said that, if he was alive, Pinochet I would vote for him.

He was a militant and several times a deputy for the right-wing Independent Democratic Union (UDI) party – today in the Piñera government coalition – which he resigned in 2016 to follow his own path.

On Twitter, where he constantly interacts with his half a million followers, he displays part of his strategy: “They tell us intolerant and extreme, because we speak the truth and say things up front. Unlike the left, we have never endorsed violence”.