Published before Sunday's election: "Will Voters Choose to Make Chile Terrible Again?"
NOVEMBER 19, 2021
BY ARIEL DORFMAN
Ever since my native Chile regained its democracy in 1990 after 17 years of a brutal dictatorship, I have been haunted by the fear that those dark times could return. No matter how often that dread was met with proof of how the Chilean people were distancing themselves from the terror of the past repudiating the executions, the torture and the massive exile of dissidents under strongman Gen. Augusto Pinochet I could not shake the sense that one day my country, besieged by crises, might condone a regression to authoritarianism and repression.
My fear lifted substantially two years ago, when the largest social justice protests in Chiles history led to 80% of the electorate voting to replace Pinochets fraudulent 1980 constitution, which had been constraining indispensable reforms. The way the constitutional convention, in session since July, has been reconceiving a deeply democratic government seemed a sign that the perverse institutions and advocates of dictatorship were being permanently consigned to ashes and irrelevance.
I should not have been so optimistic.
Chile goes to the polls Sunday to elect a new president, with a potential runoff four weeks later between the top two candidates. The campaign has seen the alarming possibility that José Antonio Kast, an ultra-right-wing populist who considers Pinochet his hero, could become the countrys next president.
When Kast, the son of a Nazi officer who had served Hitler, launched his candidacy, I believed, along with most observers on the right and the left, that his campaign was doomed. His opposition to divorce, abortion and gay rights, as well as his window-dressing responses to global warming, contrasted with what most of the country appeared to be thinking. Kast had also crusaded to keep the old, autocratic constitution and supported pardoning some of Pinochets most egregious torturers, murderers and other agents, now serving long prison sentences for their human rights violations.
How is it, then, that this crypto-fascist could end up as Chiles next president?
More:
https://www.counterpunch.org/2021/11/19/will-voters-choose-to-make-chile-terrible-again/