José Antonio Kast
| José Antonio Kast | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| |||
 From: 11 March 2026 – present | |||
| Predecessor | Gabriel Boric | ||
| Successor | Incumbent (no successor) | ||
 From: 10 June 2019 – 21 November 2021 | |||
| Predecessor | Creation of the Party | ||
| Successor | Rojo Edwards | ||
 From: 11 March 2014 – 11 March 2018 | |||
| Predecessor | María Angélica Cristi Marfil | ||
| Successor | Disolution of the District | ||
 From: 30 March 2012 – 10 May 2014 | |||
| Predecessor | Victor Pérez Varela | ||
| Successor | Javier Macaya Danús | ||
| Member of the Chamber of Deputies of Chile, District 30 (Santiago) From: 11 March 2002 – 11 March 2014 | |||
| Predecessor | Pablo Longueira Montes | ||
| Successor | Jaime Bellolio Avaria | ||
| City Councilman of Buin From: 1996–2000 | |||
| Predecessor | - | ||
| Successor | - | ||
| Information | |||
| Party | Independent (2016-2019, since 2026) Republican Party (2019-2026) Independent Democrat Union (1996-2016) | ||
| Spouse(s) | María Pía Adriasola | ||
| Religion | Catholic (Schoenstatt Apostolic Movement) | ||
José Antonio Kast Rist (b. Santiago, January 18, 1966) is the right-wing president of Chile, Catholic, father of nine with Pía Adriasola, has a pro-life and conservative stance. He is also against illegal immigration built defenses at the border during his presidency. Founder of the Chilean Republican Party, he previously served as councilman and deputy.
Political career
In 2017 he ran for president as a right-wing alternative to the establishment candidate Sebastián Piñera obtaining 7.93 % of the votes (4th place, 523,375 votes). In the second round, he supported Piñera to avoid another government of the Left. In 2018 he founded the Republican Action Movement, in 2019 the Chilean Republican Party and the think tank Republican Ideas.
In 2021 he ran for president again being the right-wing candidate of the election and being the alternative from the center-right's Sebastián Sichel obtaining the first majority in first round with a 27.91 % of the votes (1,961,387 votes) and Gabriel Boric obtained 25.82 % (1,814,777 votes). But Kast lost the second round obtaining 44.13 % (3,650,088 votes) against 55.87 % (4,620,890 votes) from Boric.
José Antonio Kast has been falsely labeled as "far-right" by the media and the Left.[1]
In 2023 he started supporting the change of Constitution since his party won a significant minority in the institution illegitimatelly created to create a new Constitution back in May 2023.[2] This was the reason why Johannes Kaiser ended up leaving the party to form his own with other former memebers of the Republican Party.
José Antonio Kast won the presidential election in December 2025 defeating his communist opponent by receiving 58% of votes and ending leftist domination of the country.
Views
He is pro-life and defends a smaller state with fewer taxes.[3] He is also against the Gender ideology, he is pro-family, pronation, and he is strongly Christian. Today he is the most important conservative politician of Chile, mostly because he has been shown as an alternative to the center-right coalition "Chile Vamos", however a lot of the members of his new party come from that coalition, and he has a lot of friends there, also he was member of the Independent Democrat Union for 20 years, one of the main parties of the coalition. JAK has criticized the immigration policies of the Michelle Bachelet government (2014-2018) which is considered to be a chaos since,[4][5] not only a lot of them were illegals but also the immigrant population of Chile went from being 1% to 6.1% (1 million new immigrants in 4 years).[6] However, during his 2021 second round campaign he published a poster saying "We are all migrants".
He supports a "responsible possession of weapons", not a the full right to wear arms everywhere (since is not a commons stance outside the United States).[7]
He supports what he considers the "good part" of the Augusto Pinochet regime.[8][9] And thinks that Miguel Krassnoff is innocent.
He criticized the Second Piñera Government[10] for "not following the program of Government" but he also supported what he considered the "good policies of the government".
Similar to Donald Trump, Kast proposed the construction of a ditch in the border with Bolivia to prevent illegal immigration from happening during the 2021 Chilean Presidential Election and again in 2025.
Kast is also a huge supporter of Carabineros de Chile (Police) and the Armed Forces. In 2019 during the protests far-leftists attacked the police and Kast supported the Carabineros.
In the same election he won a lot of support in the Araucanía region since he strongly opposes terrorism attacks there.
After he criticized COVID restrictions on July 2021, during the second round of the presidential election, he said he supported the infamous COVID vaccine passport (called Pase de movilidad in Chile) after he met with the former health minister of the Piñera Administration, Paula Daza.
International alliances
José Antonio is a supporter of Donald Trump and Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro, endorsing his successful presidential candidacy in 2018.[12][13]
Kast also met with Santiago Abascal from the conservative Spanish party Vox[14] members of the Polish Party Law and Justice, Viktor Orbán from the Fidesz Party, Giorgia Meloni from the Italian Party Fratelli d'Italia, the Dutch Party Forum for Democracy, the Pro-Brexit British politician Daniel Hannan and other members of the European Conservatives and Reformists Party.[15][16] He is also allied with Law and Justice from Poland.
On December 2021 he met Marco Rubio at the Capitol.[17]
Kast was the president of the international conservative alliance Political Network for Values between 2022 and 2024.
See also
- Republican Party (Chile)
- Republican Action Movement
- Augusto Pinochet regime (Chile, 1973–90)
- Sebastián Piñera
- Bárbara Kast (sister)
- Santiago Peña
External links
References
- ↑ Multiple references:
- Far right gains momentum in Chile's presidential elections. Aljazeera (16 December 2019). Retrieved on 25 June 2019.
- Far-Right Party Of José Antonio Kast Frightens Chilean Rightwing. Chile Today (18 June 2019). Retrieved on 25 June 2019.
- José Antonio Kast, el Bolsonaro chileno que lidera las encuestas presidenciales (es). Público (21 January 2019).
- Extrema derecha aspira a presidencia de Chile ante inscripción de nuevo partido (es) (12 June 2019).
- El candidato a presidente de Chile José Antonio Kast y su relación con los judíos e Israel (es) (10 December 2021).
- ↑ Leftist Takeover of South America: Chilean Conservative Kast Throws in with Globalists
- ↑ José Antonio Kast Proposals (es).
- ↑ Presidential candidate José Antonio Kast wants to ‘reconstruct’ Chile. Santiago Times (September 14, 2017).
- ↑ Inmigrantes sí, clandestinos no (es). La Tercera (19 April 2019). Retrieved on 25 June 2019.
- ↑ Chile es el país americano con mayor aumento de inmigrantes (es). diarioestrategia.cl (9 November 2018).
- ↑ Kast defiende tenencia de armas para civiles: "El delincuente lo va a pensar dos veces antes de entrar a una casa" (es). Emol (October 9, 2017).
- ↑ Kast: "Yo no soy admirador del general Pinochet, soy una persona que defiende el gobierno militar" (es) (9 October 2018).
- ↑ El día en que José Antonio Kast apoyó a Pinochet en la franja del SÍ (es) (10 September 2018).
- ↑ José Antonio Kast no se la deja pasar a Piñera: "No hay manual que resista tanta torpeza en un solo viaje" (es) (29 abril 2019).
- ↑ The Catholic right is pro-Israel. America’s online converts are the exception. "From Budapest to Santiago, conservative Catholics stand with Israel. The cosplay converts pushing anti-Zionism don’t represent them — and didn’t get their cues from Rome." Yaroslav Mar. March 21, 2026.
- ↑ José Antonio Kast tras la victoria de Jair Bolsonaro en Brasil: "El sentido común sigue triunfando" (es). T13 (October 28, 2018).
- ↑ José Antonio Kast: "Los triunfos de la derecha en Latinoamérica favorecen la opción que estoy planteando" (es). El Dínamo (October 30, 2018).
- ↑ José Antonio Kast es recibido en España por líderes del partido de extrema derecha Vox (es). 24 Horas (25 June 2019). Retrieved on 25 June 2019.
- ↑ Kast se reúne con europarlamentarios en Bruselas (es). Radio Agricultura (June 27, 2018).
- ↑ Desde Roma, J.A. Kast hace un balance de su gira por Europa: "La izquierda se ha visto sorprendida por el despertar del sentido común" (es). La Tercera (July 3, 2019).
- ↑ The right-wing candidate, José Antonio Kast, went on a tour of the United States