Another Latin American country turns to the far right

Jose Antonio Kast, a far-right figure, won Chile’s recent presidential elections in December. His victory in the second round with 58.2 percent of the vote against his opponent from the Communist Party, Jeanette Jara, consolidates the shift on the Chilean right from mainstream conservatism to a new brand of Trump-inspired politics.

Jara served as minister for work and social provision in the current government of Gabriel Boric of the Frente Amplio (FA, or Broad Front). In this role, she implemented mild pro-labour reforms such as the 40-hour week and wage and pension increases, which helped her become the centre-left Unity for Chile coalition’s candidate.

Boric’s presidency is the backdrop to the election. A left-wing former student leader, he came to office in 2021 in the wake of a mass social rebellion, which occurred two years earlier. That movement culminated in the then-president, a conservative billionaire, agreeing to redraft the constitution, which was a relic of the Pinochet dictatorship.

Boric and other leaders in his coalition, which included the Communist Party, played a crucial role in demobilising the movement and channelling its aspirations into their electoral campaign. Two years later, on a platform of higher taxes on the rich and greater social spending, he won the presidency.

How Chile went from such a moment in 2019 to a victory for the far-right can only be explained by the failure of Boric and the FA to implement the demands of the rebellion.

By the time a constitutional convention put a new document to a vote in late 2022, there was a chasm between the demands that millions had fought for in the streets and what was actually in the draft. Some of those demands included the nationalisation of key resource industries, land rights for indigenous groups, an overhaul of the loathed private pension system, increased education spending and a range of other socially progressive measures. But even the FA had voted against some of these measures being constitutionally enshrined. As such, 62 percent of the population voted to reject the draft.

A second draft, which further rejected key demands of the movement, was again rejected by 56 percent of the population. Boric’s response was to abandon any further constitutional process and make further concessions to the right. This political trajectory was entirely predictable. As I wrote in Red Flag after his election in 2021:

“While the victory of Boric is welcome in so far as it represents a rejection of the legacy of the dictatorship and a repudiation of the attempt to elevate a Trumpian, Bolsonarist figure, it is clear that the president-elect is both unable and unwilling to fulfil the demands of the October 2019 movement ... “[W]avering and concessions on the part of Boric will likely cede more political ground to the right, which, despite losing the elections, has a newfound sense of confidence.”

This outcome was the logical conclusion of a political project that rejects mobilising the working class, instead channelling popular sentiment into an electoral campaign. Boric and the FA sought only minor reforms to capitalism and thoroughly rejected the self-activity of the working class.

Once in government, they faced the pressures that come with running capitalism. They were now responsible for overseeing a system in which a tiny minority rules over the vast majority. This meant ensuring a stable environment for profitable investment, cordial relations with the US and attacking anyone who challenged this state of affairs.

All of this runs totally counter to the vision that millions of Chileans fought for in 2019 and then elected Boric to implement. Is it any wonder then, that after such betrayal and demoralisation, the ground would become fertile for the far right?

A similar story has been playing out across Latin America over recent years. Parties with the same program and politics as Boric have been tossed out by the electorate and replaced with a more radical and right-wing replacement.

In Argentina, a self-declared “anarcho-capitalist” president, Javier Milei, is implementing one of the most vicious austerity programs in recent memory. In El Salvador, the authoritarian Nayib Bukele has turned his country into a gulag. President Daniel Noboa is following suit in Ecuador and wants to base US troops in the country. And former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is currently serving 27 years in prison for attempting his own 6 January-style “insurrection” to maintain power, which had support in the top echelons of the military.

Several governments are now some of Trump’s biggest cheerleaders, lauding the kidnapping of Venezuela’s president. Trump, for his part, is more than willing to support them, such as when he offered a US$20 billion lifeline to Milei’s government shortly before the mid-term elections to help stabilise the economy and improve his electoral prospects. Given recent events in Venezuela and El Salvador, it’s not hard to imagine a return to the strong-man military regimes that ruled the region in the 1960s and 1970s.

Over recent decades, Latin America has given rise to many Borics—left-wing reformists who ride the tide of class struggle to power. But the region is now turning to the far right in large part because of the failure of these governments to improve people’s lives.

With Trump open about his intentions to shore up US domination over the Western hemisphere and the far right on the march, the need for an anti-capitalist political alternative to reformism has never been greater.

Tom Sullivan will present the session Franco and Pinochet: military fascism? at the Marxism conference in Melbourne, 2-5 April.