In a visit to Colchane, a tiny town on the Bolivian border which has become a popular crossing point for migrants, Kast highlighted violence perpetrated by migrants.
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Kast’s rise in the polls coincided with the Iquique marches, and he was quick to capitalise on the underlying sentiments with a Trump-like series of provocations. “They are playing on fears of a threat to security and Chilean identity – and Kast has been able to present the arrivals as an invasion which must be fought off.”īut other elements are in the mix too: at subsequent demonstrations in Iquique, anti-vaccination banners were brandished alongside others rejecting globalization and the United Nations.Īccording to government statistics, the number of foreign-born citizens living in Chile more than tripled, to 1.5 million, between 2014 and the end of 2019, while migrants – many fleeing violence and poverty in Haiti and Venezuela – continue to arrive in the country.
“The far right have managed to weaponise migration in the run-up to the election,” says Romina Ramos, a sociologist at Arturo Prat University in Iquique.
The country has been on edge since September, when anti-migrant violence exploded in Iquique, a port on Chile’s arid northern coast.Īfter police cleared a camp of homeless Venezuelan families, a xenophobic march culminated with jeering, flag-waving crowds tossing migrants’ belongings on to a bonfire – including children’s toys, nappies and a pram. Hopes for a more progressive Chile have been dealt a blow as a far-right candidate surges in opinion polls ahead of the first presidential election since massive demonstrations against inequality erupted in 2019.Ī month before the vote, polling shows that the leftwing candidate – former student leader Gabriel Boric – has slipped behind (by one percentage point) José Antonio Kast, a supporter of the dictator Augusto Pinochet, who has suggested digging ditches along the country’s border to stop migrants.Īfter months of political unrest, voters chose by huge majority to replace the country’s Pinochet-era constitution, and then elected a broadly leftwing convention to complete that task.īut fears over migration, public security and shifting social values have boosted the far right, making the 21 November election a battle between starkly contrasting visions for Chile’s future.
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