Chile elects most right-wing leader since Pinochet, immigration and crime key election issues
Immigration worries have been big in Chile for the last few years. Andra B. Chastain for The Conversation analyzes the election by Chilean voters of "the most right-wing presidential candidate since the end of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship over three and a half decades ago."
In a runoff held this past weekend, conservative José Antonio Kast received over 58% of the vote, while his left-wing opponent, Jeannette Jara, received nearly 42%. According to Professor Chastain, "the primary issues of voter concern during this campaign were crime and immigration." Sounds like elections in the USA!
Professor Chastain notes that, "as a historian of modern Latin America and Chile, [she]I believe[s] Chile’s election . . . reflects the important local context of years of increasing disenchantment with the political system."
