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Today in Focus

The Pinochet fan with a Nazi dad: meet Chile’s next president

Today in Focus

The Guardian

Daily News, News

4.65.7K Ratings

🗓️ 18 December 2025

⏱️ 23 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Santiago-based journalist John Bartlett charts how far-right José Antonio Kast managed to win election by landslide. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/infocus

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This is The Guardian.

0:07.3

Today, how fear has reshaped Chile and pushed it to the right.

0:18.7

It's historically been one of the safest countries in Latin America.

0:23.4

Little crime, socially stable, relatively wealthy.

0:28.1

Whisper it, perhaps even a bit boring.

0:32.4

But on Sunday, Chile voted for Jose Antonio Cast.

0:36.1

We're not having a cast, leadering with the 59.83% and for the other, a Harrah. Chile voted for Jose Antonio Cast. The child of immigrants, Nazis who fled Germany, this blonde, blue-eyed Catholic father of nine was once considered

0:56.3

too extreme and way too right-wing to be taken seriously by Chileans. He's also weirdly nostalgic

1:03.8

about General Pinochet, the man who violently ruled Chile for 17 years, the dictator who,

1:10.2

according to caste, would vote for me

1:12.4

if he were alive. After Jose Antonio cast victory in presidential elections on Sunday,

1:18.0

his supporters took to the streets, and won celebrated by waving a framed portrait of General

1:23.6

Pinnichet. It's only been four years since the country was celebrating a victory for the world's

1:31.5

youngest president, a 36-year-old socialist with a radical, inclusive vision for what Chile could be.

1:39.0

And yet, Castas just won by a landslide.

1:42.6

What's he selling?

1:44.0

And how has he done it? From The Guardian,

1:47.0

I'm Nashin-Ikbal, today in focus. Once a political joke, soon to be the ultra right-wing

1:55.1

president of Chile. John Bartler, you're a journalist based in Santiago, and the last time we spoke, Chile was led by a socialist.

2:07.5

It was on the eve of voting and what could have been the most progressive constitution in the world.

2:13.4

It's now voted in an ultra-conservative president.

2:18.6

What's the mood like over there?

...

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