It was a symbol hiding in plain sight. On February 24, two weeks before his inauguration as Chile\u2019s president, Jose Antonio Kast unveiled his official portrait.<\/p>\n
The photo showed the 60-year-old leader wearing a blue suit, the presidential sash and a conspicuous coat of arms stitched in the middle.<\/p>\n list of 3 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n It was conspicuous, because no president since the fall of Augusto Pinochet in 1990 had posed with the coat of arms on the sash. The last leader to do so was Pinochet himself.<\/p>\n For critics, the crest was another expression of Kast\u2019s professed affinity for the former hardline leader.<\/p>\n But as Kast is sworn into office on Wednesday, analysts question whether his embrace of Pinochet is nostalgia for Latin America\u2019s past dictatorships \u2014 or whether it is simply a sign of frustration with the status quo.<\/p>\n Maria Fernanda Garcia, the director of Chile\u2019s Museum of Memory and Human Rights, noted that, around the world, there appears to be a shift towards more hardline policies.<\/p>\n She credits a \u201ccrisis of democracy\u201d with helping to \u201cturn a past that was full of horror in many parts of the world into something that is glorified by people who didn\u2019t live through it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not what we expected after the learnings of the second world war and other conflicts and dictatorships,\u201d Garcia added.<\/p>\n Still, she has observed that young people in particular are falling prey, influenced by reactionary narratives on social media.<\/p>\n \u201cRebellion these days is not against war or dictatorships, but the rebellion is against that which is established,\u201d Garcia said. \u201cAnd the established is democracy, respect for human rights.\u201d<\/p>\n Kast won December\u2019s presidential election with the largest vote tally in Chilean history. More than seven million Chileans cast a ballot for him in the run-off, earning him more than 58 percent of the vote.<\/p>\n His success came in spite of critics pointing to past statements where he showed reverence for Pinochet.<\/p>\n Kast had even speculated during a past race that, if Pinochet had been alive, \u201che would have voted for me.\u201d<\/p>\n Pinochet seized power in a 1973 military coup, ousting Chile\u2019s democratically elected leader.<\/p>\n Over the next 17 years, he carried out a campaign of systemic repression against his political opponents, resulting in the death of more than 3,000 people. Thousands more were imprisoned and tortured.<\/p>\n Kast was a young man at the time of the dictatorship. But even then, he participated in a youth campaign to keep Pinochet in power.<\/p>\n While Kast downplayed those ties during his most recent presidential race, the connection to Pinochet has been part of his personal brand for most of his political career.<\/p>\n Felipe Gonzalez Mac-Conell, author of the book Kast: The Chilean Far-Right, explained that the influence of Pinochet\u2019s government can be linked to Kast\u2019s embrace of neoliberal economics and his conservative approach to issues like crime and women\u2019s rights.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat has permeated his entire political project has been a vindication of the cultural values of the dictatorship, the economic policies of the dictatorship, and also of various civic collaborators of the dictatorship,\u201d Mac-Conell said.<\/p>\n Pinochet\u2019s associates have even formed a cornerstone of Kast\u2019s incoming government.<\/p>\n Before his inauguration, Kast named two former lawyers for Pinochet, Fernando Barros and Fernando Rabat, to his cabinet.<\/p>\n They will serve as minister of defence and minister of justice and human rights, respectively.<\/p>\n The legacy of Chile\u2019s coup, however, remains a divisive subject in the country, and experts warn it is difficult to know how many Chileans currently support the late Pinochet\u2019s platform.<\/p>\n One poll in 2023, from the marketing research group Mori Chile, found that more than a third of Chileans believe the 1973 coup was justified.<\/p>\n Pinochet has remained a dominant figure in Chilean politics \u2014 and not just because of Kast.<\/p>\n During the 2025 presidential campaign, for instance, another far-right candidate, Johannes Kaiser, also expressed his support for the coup. He ultimately earned 14 percent of the vote in the first round of the election.<\/p>\n But support for the legacy of dictatorship is not necessarily what drove voters to Kast, according to Mac-Conell.<\/p>\n Instead, Mac-Conell believes Kast came to power as the result of various factors, including the shortcomings of Chile\u2019s left wing \u2014 and frustration with his predecessor, outgoing President Gabriel Boric.<\/p>\n Mac-Conell also pointed out that Kast formed his own party as an alternative to the status quo. Kast\u2019s Republican Party is seen as more conservative than the right-wing establishment.<\/p>\n Jose Alejandro Godoy, a Peruvian political scientist who is writing a book about autocracy in Latin America, has been exploring how Kast may be part of a broader trend in the region\u2019s politics.<\/p>\n Other prominent Latin American leaders have similarly embraced the dictatorships in their countries\u2019 pasts.<\/p>\n In Brazil, for instance, former President Jair Bolsonaro openly venerated his country\u2019s military dictatorship. He has since been convicted of trying to overthrow the democratic rule of law himself.<\/p>\n In Argentina, meanwhile, President Javier Milei has minimised the atrocities that killed or disappeared an estimated 30,000 people in the 1970s and \u201980s.<\/p>\n Godoy argues that the rise of these leaders is not an expression of \u201cnostalgia for an earlier model or era\u201d but instead a reflection of deep disaffection with present-day politics.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople don\u2019t think politics is going to change anything in their life in the near or medium term,\u201d Godoy said.<\/p>\n Amid that yawning apathy and mistrust, \u201cwe\u2019re finding characters who are closer to an authoritarian vision,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n Godoy pointed to the political situation in his own country, Peru, which is set to hold a new presidential election in April.<\/p>\n One of the frontrunners is Keiko Fujimori, the daughter of the late Alberto Fujimori, a divisive leader widely condemned as a dictator. Her campaign slogans reflect her father\u2019s appeal for Peruvian strength and stability.<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s bring order to Peru,\u201d one slogan says. Another is simply, \u201cThe force of order.\u201d<\/p>\n The late Fujimori was ultimately convicted of human rights abuses in 2009, including for his use of death squads.<\/p>\n Still, Godoy said there has always been a sector of Peruvian society that minimised the human rights violations in favour of social and economic goals.<\/p>\n In Chile, he added, it\u2019s similar: Kast\u2019s appeal is not so much a nostalgia for Pinochet but rather a thirst for order, something Kast harnessed with his aggressive public safety platform and proposed crackdown on immigration.<\/p>\n \u201cThe worry is,\u201d Godoy said, \u201cyou trade security for civil liberties.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n It was a symbol hiding in plain sight. On February 24, two weeks before his inauguration as Chile\u2019s president, Jose Antonio Kast unveiled his official portrait. The photo showed the 60-year-old leader wearing a blue suit, the presidential sash and a conspicuous coat of arms stitched in the middle. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14719,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latin-america-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
Who was Pinochet?<\/h2>\n
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Frustration with the status quo<\/h2>\n
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A regional trend?<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"