José Antonio Kast Rist (born 18 January 1966), also known by his initials JAK, is a Chilean lawyer and politician. He is running for President in the 2025 Chilean general election, for the third time.[1]
Kast's mother, along with two of his siblings, Michael (later Miguel) and Barbara, arrived in Chile in 1951.[6][8] The family founded Cecinas Bavaria, a sausage factory, in 1962, where the family made most of their fortune.[7][8] In total, Kast's parents had 10 children, three of whom predeceased their parents.[11]The Intercept noted that Michael Kast Schindele parented children "who shared his far-right politics".[10] Kast's late brother Miguel was an economist and Chicago Boy who served under Augusto Pinochet as labor minister and president of the Central Bank of Chile, and Kast is also the uncle of Political Evolution senator Felipe Kast.[12]
Kast founded a law firm in 1990. He was also the director of a real estate company owned by his family in the 1990s.[15]
Political career
Between 1996 and 2000, Kast was a councilman in Buin. In 2001, he was elected as a member of the Chamber of Deputies for District 30 of San Bernardo. He was the Secretary General of the Independent Democratic Union, a party from which he resigned in order to run for president.[13][16] While in the Chamber of Deputies, Kast gained the support of the Bishop of San BernardoJuan Ignacio González Errázuriz, with the bishop writing a four-page document instructing his congregation to support those against emergency contraception and same-sex marriage.[17] The support from the bishop was instrumental with Kast establishing his political career, with Kast's advocacy against contraception playing an important role in developing his support.[17]
2017 presidential campaign
Kast's 2017 presidential campaign logo
On 18 August 2017, Kast officially registered his independent candidacy with the Electoral Service, presenting 43,461 signatures.[18] He was supported by right-wing, conservative, libertarian, nationalist and retired military groups, among others.[19][20][21] Kast promoted a "less taxes, less government, pro-life" stance,[22] as well as anti-illegal immigration[23] government programs. His support of the former military government led to much controversy during his campaign, especially his proposal to forgive convicts over 80 years old who have age-related illnesses, including those who were convicted of human rights violations under Pinochet's government.[22] He received 523,213 votes in the 2017 presidential election, representing 7.93% of the total votes and landing in the fourth place, although opinion polls only showed a 2% to 3% support for him.[24] In the second round of the election, he supported Sebastián Piñera, who won the election. He remarked that "[In today's world,] Chileans need God", and said that the state should promote religion in schools by having available teachers for this subject when students choose to have them.[25]
Formation of political movements, the Republican Party of Chile and participation in constitutional plebiscites (2018–2022)
José Antonio Kast during a pro-life march with a light-blue bandanna.Republican Party logo, 2019
In terms of international relations, Kast proposed closing the border with Bolivia, arguing this measure would allow for a more effective fight against drug trafficking. In 2018, he called on the government to sever diplomatic relations with France in retaliation for the asylum granted to former guerrilla Ricardo Palma Salamanca.[26]
José Antonio Kast in the first aniversary of the Republican Action Movement.
In September 2019, Kast was accused of failing to declare money transferred to companies in Panama. Kast recognized the existence of these companies but denied that he owned them, saying they were owned by his brother, Christian Kast. He then defended the right of Chilean people to invest abroad.[32]
In May 2019, he created the think tankRepublican Ideas and in June 2019 he created the Chilean Republican Party. He opposed the demonstrations that took place during the 2019 Chilean protests, saying that they were not part of a social movement but were instead acts of violence organized by terrorists.[13] As approval for the protests decreased, Kast was able to establish support of Chileans who opposed the violence observed during the protests.[33] During the 2020 Chilean national referendum regarding changing the Constitution of Chile, he was one of the main supporters and campaigners for rejecting the option,[13] which received 21.72% of the vote; the constitutional change was approved by 78.28% of the vote.[34]
In the 2021 Chilean Constitutional Convention election, Kast made a political pact with the center-right coalition Chile Vamos to form a joint list of candidates for the election called Vamos por Chile. The list obtained 20.6% of the vote, representing less than one-third of the Constitutional Convention. Kast proposed one of the main candidates of the pact, Teresa Marinovic, whose political views aligned with Kast's but was not well received by parts of the center-right. However, Marinovic won with a high percentage of votes and, thanks to the D'Hondt method, many other candidates were able to enter the Constitutional Convention with her triumph.[35]
In the 2022 constitutional referendum, the Republican Party officially supported the "Rejection" option,[36] which emerged victorious over the "Approve" option. Unlike the previous plebiscite,[37] voting was mandatory this time[38] and the restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic were less stringent.
2021 presidential campaign
Kast in the 2021 presidential campaignSecond presidential campaign logo in 2021
In 2018, Kast confirmed his intentions of running for president in the 2021 Chilean general election.[39] In this election, he ran under his own Republican Party along with candidates for the Chamber of Deputies and Senate, unlike in his previous presidential candidacy in 2017, in which he ran as an independent. Kast formed the Christian Social Front, a political pact to present a list of candidates from the Republican Party and the Christian Conservative Party. Kast has held campaign proposals that have been controversial. He supports the pardoning of former Pinochet officials of "advanced age", which would generally include all officials imprisoned. He also proposed banning abortion, fusing the Ministry of Women and Gender Equality, remove Chile from the United Nations Human Rights Council and building more prisons.[10]
During his campaigning, Kast used the slogan "make Chile a great country", which was compared to Donald Trump's Make America Great Again slogan,[40] with some supporters wearing Make America Great Again apparel at his events.[41][42][43] Kast did not participate in the Chile Vamospresidential primary, which was won by Sebastián Sichel. Sichel was considered as the main right-wing candidate in the polls at the beginning of the election. However, after the first debate on television, Kast started to surpass Sichel and became the top candidate on the right. He received the most votes in the first round of the election, nearly 28% of total votes cast, and he qualified for the run-off against Gabriel Boric.[44]
On December 18, the former presidential candidate of the Party of the People, Franco Parisi, endorsed José Antonio Kast. This followed the results of an internal party consultation where members chose to support Kast with 61.41% of the votes, compared to 6.58% who favored Gabriel Boric.[47][48]
In the second round of the election, held on December 19, Kast received 44.13% of the votes, losing to Gabriel Boric, who garnered 55.87% of the votes and became Chile's new president.[49] On 19 December 2021, Kast conceded defeat after losing to Boric in the run-off and promised "constructive collaboration".[50] Kast became the first candidate since 1999 to lead the presidential election in the first round but lose the runoff.[51]
Presidency of the "Political Network for Values" (2022−2024)
José Antonio Kast at the VI Transatlantic Summit of the Political Network for Values held in the Senate of Spain in 2024.
Between March 2022 and December 2024, Kast served as president of the international conservative network "Political Network for Values".[52][53]
José Antonio Kast at the Republican Party's headquarters following their victory in May 2023.
Before the election, the party opposed the creation of the Constitutional Council following the victory of the "Reject" option in the previous exit plebiscite. However, the party deemed it important to participate in the process once it could no longer be blocked, and no entry plebiscite was held.[54]
In 2023, the Constitutional Council was formed to draft the new Constitution. This council consisted of 51 members, with Chileans electing 34 from the right (23 from the Republican Party and 11 from Chile Vamos) and 16 from the left in May of that year. In November, the party's leadership decided to support the "In Favor" option in the December plebiscite, but the "Against" option emerged victorious. After the defeat, José Antonio Kast acknowledged the campaign's failure.[55]
2025 presidential campaign
In November 2024, the Republican Party confirmed José Antonio Kast as its candidate for the first round of the 2025 Chilean presidential election, rejecting participation in primaries with Chile Vamos and other opposition candidates.[1]
^Slate Escanilla, Christian (29 June 2017). "Del Bavaria a la Moneda". Diario El Día (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 18 November 2021. Retrieved 21 December 2021.
Fabelo Concepción, S. (2021). La puerta brasileña del proyecto Bannon en Latinoamérica: The Brazilian door of the Bannon project in Latin America. Cuadernos De Nuestra América, (53), 15. Recuperado a partir de https://redint.isri.edu.cu/cna/article/view/8Archived 5 December 2021 at the Wayback Machine
^Funk, Kevin (29 November 2021). "Chile at the Crossroads: Between Reform and Reaction". Foreign Policy in Focus. Inter-Hemispheric Resource Center Press. Kast and others of xenophobic and racist sentiment in a country that has seen large numbers of arrivals in recent years from Haiti, Colombia, Venezuela, and elsewhere
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