Chile elections 2021: Jose Antonio Cast, defender of the Pinochet era that drowned out the Chilean right | Chile’s 2021 presidential election | New President, Senators and Delegates | November 21 | Candidates | Ballots | Official Results | | The world

Satisfactory position against harsh talk and dictatorship against immigration, gay marriage or feminism; Jose Antonio Cast It is the most conservative card in the race for La Moneta and its burning rise in recent weeks has caused a tsunami right in Chile.

View: Live | Chile election 2021: Voting centers open for important presidential election

Although he wants to sell himself as an “outsider”, Closet He is an old acquaintance in politics: he was an ally for 16 years, a fighter in the Free Democratic Union (UTI) for two decades, and an independent candidate in the last presidential election, where he did not reach 8% of the vote.

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“A new cycle in politics must begin, where the political right is set aside”, He said this in 2016 when he left the UDI, one of the right-wing parties in the ruling coalition.

With him, he pulled heavyweights from training and set up in 2019 Republican Party, With whom he is participating in these elections, which is the most uncertain and profound in the recent history of Chile.

Trump and Bolsanaro fan

Despite his long political career, he had never gone so far before: most polls put him on November 21 as one of the two favorites to go to the second round, with the aim of getting more than 20% of the vote, along with the Left. Gabriel Borick.

He walked out as the remaining candidate, but as the weeks went by he gained strength and gained the support of the ruling party and the former minister. Sebastian Chichel, Who was stabbed after a series of mistakes in the campaign.

Many figures of the classical right have publicly expressed their support, Because they consider it Closet (55 years old) can “straighten out” a country that is still recovering from the fierce protests of 2019 – he calls the protesters “violent” – and from an epidemic that has wrought social and economic devastation.

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He does not want to be branded an extreme right-winger – he claims to be a “candidate for common sense”.-, but in more than one case He showed his admiration for American Donald Trump or Brazilian Jair Bolsanaro, yet he is no less humorous and tries to appear more friendly and polite than them..

Some of his campaign phrases “Courage to make Chile a better country”, Inevitably led to “make America better again” Trump To the White House.

He is also very close to the Spanish VOX party and on Sunday he celebrated the annoyance of the far-right Javier Milli in the Argentine parliament.

Pinochetist?

A lawyer, of German descent and deeply Catholic (he is the father of nine children) he tried to moderate his speech during the campaign, but his strategy exploded at a press conference with foreign reporters last week. Takes a string of reviews and more of their number.

Closet He referred to the regime of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) as a “military government” – he wanted to distinguish it from the “dictatorships” of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, because, in his view, Chile was transformed into a “democratic election” in which “the enemy was not suppressed.”

“There is no point in comparing what is happening in the dictatorship of Cuba, which has been under dictatorship for more than 70 years, with the drug dictatorship of Venezuela or the dictatorship of Ortega in Nicaragua (Daniel).” Reveals.

Tell me if it will be respected if dictatorships hand over power to democracy and turn to democracy. This is not what other countries are doing, it is being done in Chile. “ He insisted.

It is not new that he is complacent with the military dictatorship. In fact, he backed the general’s continuity in the 1988 referendum, and has often said he would vote for him if he were alive.

He preserves his economic heritage and one of his many brothers was also a minister in the regime.

His show is not without controversy either. In the economic sphere, he defends liberal positions, which include deregulation of markets, minimal reduction of the state, privatization of the large mining company Kodelco and drastic reduction of taxes.

While in the social sector, she wants to remove the Ministry of Women, uphold the concept of the traditional family, fight abortion, and build a “ditch” in the North to prevent illegal immigration, in the pure Trump style.

He opposed the constitutional change in the historic referendum in 2020, and many analysts have warned that if he becomes president, he could ignore the work of the conference responsible for producing the new text.

JAK, as his followers call him, wanted to allay fears in his meeting with international reporters: “I am a Democrat,” he said, if in any doubt.

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