They said it a thousand times, and no one believed them. "Kast is a Pinochetist," human rights organizations warned. "He will bring back the same people as always," women's groups, indigenous communities, and student movements cautioned. But Chile — the very country that, barely six years ago, rose up in a social uprising to bury the dictatorship's Constitution — chose to ignore history. And here we are: José Antonio Kast, son of a Nazi party militant and self-proclaimed defender of Augusto Pinochet, has just assumed the presidency with 58 percent of the vote.

Welcome to Chile in 2026, where fascism did not arrive on tanks — it arrived through ballot boxes.

The Return of Familiar Faces

There are images that hurt more than others. Watching two lawyers who once defended Augusto Pinochet take oaths of office in a democratic government should be one of them. And yet, in Chile, historical memory appears to be short — or perhaps selectively applied.

Kast's new cabinet is composed predominantly of figures from the business world and the economic elite: individuals who have never had to worry about making ends meet, but who will now determine the future of pensions, healthcare, and education for millions of Chileans. Francisco Pérez Mackenna, a senior executive of the Luksic Group, has been appointed Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Judith Marín, an ultra-conservative evangelical who opposes abortion, sexual diversity, and the very ministry she will lead, has been named Minister of Women and Gender Equity.

This is not coincidental. It is the reinstallation of Pinochetism in positions of power — something that, a decade ago, would have seemed unthinkable in a country that had appeared to awaken.

A People That Voted Against Itself

And here comes the most painful part — what, as a journalist, is difficult to write but necessary to say: the Chilean people voted for this.

More than seven million individuals placed their trust in a man who has justified a dictatorship that left 3,200 dead and disappeared, and tens of thousands tortured. A man who stated openly that, had Pinochet been alive, he would have voted for him.

What goes through the mind of someone who, living in a country with the wound of dictatorship still open, chooses the one who vindicates it? The answer is uncomfortable: the left lost, but the people also failed. They failed in their capacity to learn from history, in their resistance to media manipulation, and in their vulnerability to hate speech disguised as "firm governance."

The Fear Narrative That Worked

Kast built his campaign on a lie repeated until it became conventional wisdom: that Chile "is falling apart," that the country is a failed state dominated by drug trafficking, and that the solution lies in a heavy hand, military presence in the streets, and mass deportations. The data tells a different story. Chile has a homicide rate of 5.4 per 100,000 inhabitants — one of the lowest in Latin America. But who cares about data when fear sells?

The promise to expel 300,000 undocumented migrants, build border walls, and cut six billion dollars in public spending resonated with many voters as if it were a revelation. It did not matter that experts warned those measures were unworkable, that the cuts would fall hardest on the poorest, or that xenophobia does not resolve public insecurity.

Working-class voters chose the far right because they found in Kast's rhetoric something the left never managed to offer: a simple narrative, free of nuance, where there is always an external party to blame.

The Left's Share of Responsibility

Yet it would be dishonest to place all responsibility on the electorate. The Chilean left — the political force that governed through the Concertación coalitions and later under President Gabriel Boric — has its own record of failure. The Boric administration ends with a 34 percent approval rating, the lowest average recorded by any government since the return to democracy. It promised to bury Pinochet's Constitution and ended up managing its resurrection. It raised expectations of transformation and delivered continuity — clearing the path for the reincarnation it now succeeds.

When the left squanders its opportunity, when it betrays its promises, when it renders itself irrelevant, the far right fills the vacuum. It is that simple. It is that tragic.

What Comes Next

Kast has promised a "government of emergency." In practice, that means military forces deployed in the streets, regression on the rights of women and LGBTQ+ communities, persecution of migrants, and an economic model that will deepen the inequality that already erupted in 2019.

Two of his ministers defended Pinochet in court. The message is unambiguous: those who violated human rights during the dictatorship have not been defeated. They are governing again.

History Is Not Finished

And yet, the most lucid analysis comes from those who remember that fascism in power is dangerous — but also transitory. "His arrival to power through electoral means does not make him less dangerous, but more effective. Yet, as history demonstrates, his hegemony is necessarily transitory," writes analyst René Leal Hurtado.

The contradictions that Kast's rhetoric attempts to conceal will eventually resurface. Structural violence, inequality, and social injustice do not disappear because an ultra-right president declares he will restore order. The question is how much damage will be done along the way. How many rights will be rolled back. How many lives will be disrupted before the Chilean people — the same people who today chose Pinochetism — awaken once more.

Epilogue for Those Who Still Believe

Chile voted. Chile made a mistake. But we cannot afford to remain in lamentation. The ignorance that led millions to vote against their own interests is not an individual failing: it is the result of a system that dismantled critical education, turned information into a commodity, and atomized society until it became easy prey for hate-based messaging.

The task now is to resist. To organize. To explain. To rebuild the class consciousness that neoliberalism worked so hard to destroy. Because Kast will pass. Pinochetism, like fascism, is historically transitory. But the dignity of a people cannot again be defeated by its own amnesia.

"History remains open, and with it, the possibility of contesting the future."

Today, as North American imperial influence reasserts itself across Latin America, Chile joins the tide — showing its worst face.

Translated by Sergio A. Paneque Díaz / CubaSí Translation Staff