Chile is perceived by many of its neighbours in the Latin American region as a safer, more stable haven. But inside the country, that perception has unravelled as voters worried about security, immigration and crime chose José Antonio Kast to be their next president. Kast is a hardline conservative who has praised General Augusto Pinochet, Chile’s former right-wing dictator whose US-backed coup ushered in 17 years of military rule marked by torture, disappearances and censorship. To his critics, Kast’s family history, including his German-born father’s membership in the Nazi Party and his brother’s time as a minister under Pinochet, is unsettling. However, some of Kast’s supporters openly defend Pinochet’s rule, arguing that Chile was more peaceful then. In a nod to Chile’s past and to accusations levelled at other right-wing leaders in the region after they imposed military crackdowns on organised crime, the 59-year-old pledged in his first speech as president-elect that his promise to lead an “emergency government” would not mean “authoritarianism”. Sunday’s election makes Chile the latest country in Latin America to decisively swing from the left to the right, following Argentina, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador and Panama. Peru, Colombia and Brazil face pivotal elections next […]