The populist radical right in contemporary Chile: the case of José Antonio Kast and the Partido Republicano

In contrast to most Latin American countries, post-transition Chile has right-wing political parties that have not only managed to establish themselves and endure, but also to develop successful electoral cooperation strategies at the municipal, parliamentary and presidential levels. However, internal conflicts within the right-wing bloc have intensified in the last few years, and nowadays a new right-wing party has emerged: the Partido Republicano, headed by José Antonio Kast. The latter openly criticizes the moderation of the right and seeks to give voice to those who feel betrayed by established right-wing parties. As he pointed out in his electoral program for the 2017 presidential election, “the biggest mistake of the right in recent years has been to renounce its own principles and adjust its values to win the sympathy of certain sectors”. It is worth indicating that almost no studies systematically analyze the Partido Republicano and José Antonio Kast. The latter competed in the 2021 presidential election and put together an electoral list for the 2021 congressional election. This paper seeks to examine this case study using the conceptual framework of populist radical right developed by Mudde (2007), who argues that the latter has three defining attributes: authoritarianism, nativism, and populism. Particular emphasis will be placed on the information produced by the Partido Republicano and José Antonio Kast himself, such as propaganda, official discourses, webpages, and Facebook and Twitter accounts. Our idea is to undertake qualitative content analysis to distinguish how authoritarian, nativist, and populist ideas are articulated. This type of analysis will permit us not only to figure out how the members of both “the pure people” and “the corrupt elite” are constructed, but will also put the Chilean populist radical right in comparative perspective, since this type of framework has been already applied to understand the populist radical right in Europe and beyond.