“I’m voting for José Antonio Kast,” says Edgar Casanova, a 31-year-old from Venezuela who is entitled to vote in Chile’s presidential run-off on December 14th. Many other Venezuelans will do the same, even though Mr Kast says every irregular migrant in Chile, most of whom are Venezuelan, must leave or be deported. This is partly because the alternative is Jeannette Jara of the Communist Party. “I feel sorry for people who are undocumented,” says Mr Casanova, “but communists scare me a thousand times more.”

Mr Kast’s measured tone and studied vagueness also help to soothe fears. He claims to The Economist that those who have come to Chile illegally have a free choice: they can leave now with their belongings, or later without them. He conspicuously avoids mentioning deportations directly. “Everyone has to make their own decisions freely,” he says. “I know it is difficult, but we have to enforce the law.”

Mr Kast is almost certain to win the election, thanks largely to fears of crime and immigration. He is polling about 15 points ahead of Ms Jara. The outgoing president, Gabriel Boric, has been Chile’s most left-wing leader since its return to democracy in 1990. Mr Kast would be its most right-wing. He promises deportations, maximum-security prisons and spending cuts. In other countries, such policies have often heralded an erosion of democracy and the rule of law. Mr Kast promises to show this need not be the case.

Chile is emerging from a period of political flux. In 2019 huge street protests erupted, sparked by increased subway fares and sustained by anger over inequality. This propelled Mr Boric to victory in 2021 promising to “re-found” Chile with a new constitution. A constitutional assembly produced a draft so utopian that Chileans roundly rejected it. A second attempt, led by conservatives, was rejected too.

Meanwhile immigration, crime and a sluggish economy have pushed voters right. Among Chile’s 20m residents are 2m immigrants. About 337,000, almost all of whom have arrived since 2018, are undocumented. Crime has risen sharply, especially the gruesome sort carried out by gangs. That has made Chileans more fearful of crime than almost anywhere else surveyed in the world, to an exaggerated extent. In a survey of 144 countries they are the sixth most fearful of walking alone at night, far more alarmed than Mexicans or even Malians, who are in the midst of a civil war. Chile is about as safe as the United States. Murders are concentrated in a few communes. The homicide rate is now falling. Immigrants are often—with little evidence—blamed for the rise in crime.

This is Mr Kast’s third run at the presidency. He has ties with right-wing leaders around the world, but remains distinctly Chilean. His conservatism is typical of a section of the country’s elite. He is against abortion without exception and has opposed his wife taking birth control. He once said that Augusto Pinochet, Chile’s former military dictator, “would vote for me if he were alive”. His free-market instincts are classically Chilean. Still, on immigration he follows Donald Trump’s lead.

He promises an “emergency government” concentrating not on his social values, but on immigration, crime and the economy. Expect soldiers and drones to try to close the border to irregular migrants; deportees are likely to be photographed as they are dragooned onto planes.

Venezuela refuses to accept deportees from Chile. Unless Mr Trump succeeds in ousting Nicolás Maduro, its entrenched dictator, that is unlikely to change. Mr Kast insists that it will. In any case, if that obstacle is overcome, deporting so many people will be tricky. In 2024 Chile issued over 12,000 expulsion orders but managed to deport only 1,100 people—about three a day. Even if Mr Kast succeeds in speeding the pace ten-fold, it would still take 30 years to deport all 337,000 irregulars. He suggests that many will leave before he takes office, easing his task. Perhaps.

He plays down the element of force in deportations: “Our approach is very clear: no violence, just enforcing the law. I don’t have to go armed to look for someone: you are going to come to me.” The idea is that when illegal immigrants use public services they will be noticed and nabbed—and will, apparently, give themselves up quietly. His manifesto says they will be held in internment camps while awaiting deportation, a costly plan. Experts believe Mr Kast will have to regularise the status of some undocumented migrants to reduce the size of the problem. He insists he will not.

His plans for security are pure mano dura (“iron fist”): tougher sentences and maximum-security prisons, with hardened criminals isolated. New prisons are needed, since existing ones are operating at about 140% of capacity. Yet Chile’s incarceration rate is already the third-highest in South America and among the highest in the world. Mr Kast also proposes to send soldiers to seal the border and patrol gangster strongholds. This is controversial, given Chile’s history of military dictatorship.

Chilean concerns about safety may thus be reduced. But a sustained reduction in crime requires more sophisticated policies that Mr Kast spends less time on: gathering better intelligence on the gangs; creating programmes to stop vulnerable youths joining them; and ensuring that former convicts are reintegrated into society.

On economics his platform is vigorously pro-market. “The state does not create jobs and wealth. The state destroys,” says his manifesto. One of his sensible priorities is to simplify permitting. Another is to cut corporation tax. He proposes to cut public spending by $6bn—equivalent to 7% of a year’s budget—within 18 months of taking office without touching welfare. Many economists say that is wildly optimistic. For years the government has spent more than it takes in revenue, so cuts may be prudent. But given Chile’s debt is still relatively low, whether such deep cuts are wise is questionable; they will probably slow growth. Nonetheless, Mr Kast says under his policies the economy could grow by 4% a year, well up from the 2.4% forecast for 2025. “I haven’t heard a single thing to suggest they could change the trend rate of growth,” says Andrés Velasco, a centre-left former finance minister.

Jorge Quiroz, Mr Kast’s economic adviser, is favourite to be finance minister. He reels off ideas for every sector. Though keen to cut red tape, he sounds more management consultant than free-market zealot. He denies taking inspiration from Javier Milei, Argentina’s president. “The problem of government is management,” he says.

Mr Kast will not have a majority of seats in Congress. He will probably get enough support for many of his plans on immigration and security, but Chile’s lawmakers tend to be unruly; they may bridle at his more extreme policies, such as expanding the role of the army. Some worry about how he may react to setbacks. His strategy is to “invalidate different opinions, ridicule them, stigmatise them and disqualify them”, says Carolina Tohá, a leading centre-left politician whose own presidential bid fell flat. “That’s how democracy begins to deteriorate.” Mr Kast says he can be tough on crime and migration and yet still be a democrat. He may soon get a chance to prove it. ■

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