Sawt Falasteen - Chile's Kast, most right-wing president since Pinochet, takes office

Chile is the latest Latin American country to lurch to the right as voters back law-and-order candidates to fight the spread of organized crime.

Kast, 60, trounced Jeannette Jara, a communist, in December's election run-off to clinch the presidency on his third attempt.

He is Chile's most hardline leader since the brutal 1973-1990 dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet -- whom Kast greatly admires.

Last week, Kast was among a dozen right-wing allies of US President Donald Trump who gathered in Florida to seal a new US-led "Counter Cartel" military coalition.

The trained lawyer, whose election was cheered by Washington, has also amplified US concerns over Chinese investment in Latin America, where Trump insists on calling the shots.

The ultraconservative father of nine borrowed from Trump's playbook on the campaign trail, vowing to deport hundreds of thousands of mostly Venezuelan irregular migrants and seal the northern border.

The new president will represent "a conservative right wing unlike anything seen since the return to democracy (in 1990)," Rodrigo Arellano, a political analyst at Chile's University of Development, told AFP.

- Cracking down -

Kast has promised to moved fast to tamp down a surge in murders, kidnappings and extortion widely blamed on gangs from Venezuela and other Latin American countries.

The crime surge in what remains one of the region's safest countries has happened in tandem with a doubling of the immigrant population since 2017.

Kast wants to give the police more firepower, deploy troops in crime hotspots and deport large numbers of undocumented migrants.

His proposals resonate with Luis Lapierre, a 59-year-old telecommunications operator from the capital Santiago.

"When it gets dark, everything closes because you could get robbed. Kast is going to crack down because we need to crack down," Lapierre said.

Kast will be sworn in before Congress in the central coastal city of Valparaiso.

Several right-wing leaders will attend his inauguration, including Argentina's firebrand Javier Milei, Rodrigo Paz of neighboring Bolivia and gang-busting Daniel Noboa of Ecuador.

Brazil's left-wing President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva canceled his travel plans at the last minute, without explanation.

- No quick solutions -

The run-up to Kast's inauguration was clouded by a clash between him and outgoing left-wing president Gabriel Boric over a Chinese project to link Hong Kong and Chile via a submarine fiber optic cable.

Washington claims the project is a threat to regional security.

Kast last week accused Boric of withholding information about the project and briefly suspended cooperation with Boric on the transfer of power.

The spat caused unease in a country with a tradition of political cordiality, even between ideological foes.

On the campaign trial, Kast played it safe, dodging questions about his admiration for Pinochet and his stated opposition to abortion, including in cases of rape and risk to the mother's life.

He also refused to detail how he would fulfill his promise to expel more than 340,000 undocumented migrants and cut public spending by $6 billion without slashing social benefits.

Arellano warned that Kast would face pressure to quickly produce results to problems that "don't have quick solutions."

Some of his cabinet choices sparked outcry from the opposition and rights groups.

He named two lawyers that defended Pinochet's rule to the defense and justice portfolios, and the incoming women's affairs minister is an evangelical anti-abortion activist.

Political scientist Alejandro Olivares, of the University of Chile, warned that Kast's cabinet has "very little experience in negotiation and political maneuvering" which could slow his agenda in Congress.

The campaign of former leftist president Michelle Bachelet (2006-2010 and 2014-2018) to become the next UN Secretary-General could also become a political football between the left and right.

Kast has so far given no indication of whether he will support her candidacy.

O.Salim--SF-PST