José Antonio Kast, Chile's most right-wing president since Pinochet, takes office

Chile's most right-wing president in over three decades, José Antonio Kast, will be sworn in on Wednesday on a promise to tackle surging rates of violent crime and carry out mass migrant deportations.

Argentina's neighbour 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 ultra-conservative 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, said Rodrigo Arellano, a political analyst at Chile's University of Development.

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 Valparaíso.

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

Brazil's left-wing President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva cancelled 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 US$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 defence 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.

Who is Chile's new hard-right president?

José Antonio Kast became Chile's president on his third attempt, becoming the country's most right-wing leader in over three decades by pledging a firm hand on security and order.

The 60-year-old lawyer and father of nine vowed to deport hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants, mostly Venezuelans. "Pack your things and leave," he told them on the eve of the vote.

Kast claims immigration is a plot by the "radical left" to end freedoms and that immigrants are taking homes, hospital beds and government funds from Chileans. They "told us that they can't close the borders and now we can't open our windows for fear of violence," he said.

His message struck a chord with voters who blame a sharp increase in the migrant population for insecurity, even though statistics show Chile still being one of Latin America's safest countries.

Born in Santiago, Kast studied law at the city's Catholic university and has been a politician for 30 years. His legislative achievements were limited to passing laws allowing the construction of statues, the sale of reading glasses without a prescription and the regulation of lotteries.

A staunch Catholic, he broke from Chile's mainstream conservative party in 2016 to found the more radical Republican Party. He opposes abortion in cases of rape, and is against emergency contraception, divorce, same-sex marriage and euthanasia. He once forbade his lawyer wife, María Pia Adriasola, from using birth control pills.

Kast has expressed admiration for the 1973-1990 dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, a general who was responsible for the deaths of more than 3,000 Chileans.

The youngest of 10 siblings, Kast inherited a successful sausage business from his German immigrant parents. Media investigations revealed his father to have been a member of the Nazi Party who fought in World War II. Kast has said it was a forced conscription and he did not believe in Nazi ideology.

During the campaign, Kast has appeared behind bulletproof glass and admitted to carrying a revolver.

Still, biographer Amanda Marton described him as "sober, pragmatic, calm compared to other far-right leaders."

Unlike Brazil's former president Jair Bolsonaro, Argentina's current leader Javier Milei or the United States's Donald Trump, Kast is seen as reserved and cautious.

"He's far more conservative and lacks charisma," said Robert Funk, a political scientist at the University of Chile.

Supporters say a calm demeanor is part of his appeal.

But former colleagues describe him as authoritarian: "You're with him or against him," recalled journalist Lily Zuniga.

"He feels born for greatness," Zuniga said.

In his winning run, Kast downplayed his conservative agenda and focused on security and migration.