Ask many Chileans how their country fared in the past several years and they’ll describe a descent into disaster: Venezuelan gangs surged across porous borders, bringing unprecedented kidnappings and contract killings to one of the region’s safest nations. A social uprising unleashed violent chaos on once-sleepy streets. An economy long vaunted for its rapid growth sputtered into a stall. These are the voters who hope to elect their country’s most right-wing president since its military dictatorship on Sunday.
Former lawmaker José Antonio Kast, 59, they argue, can bring back the simple, stable life that Chileans lost to rising crime, uncontrolled migration and left-wing excesses. Kast’s rival in this runoff presidential election is their worst fear: a communist. “We need to go back in time to when Chile meant peace and quiet, when there weren’t so many Venezuelans and Colombians in the streets, when you didn’t have to look over your shoulder every second,” said Ernesto Romero, 70, shucking corn at his vegetable stall in Chile’s capital of Santiago.
