"Past eight o'clock nobody goes out anymore, everyone is scared, she said. People voted for Jose Antonio Kast because he promised strong, drastic changes. Kast, 60, whose career on the most extreme rightwing fringes of Chilean politics has often courted controversy, was elected president at the third attempt when he won 58% of the vote."
"Violent crime has ticked up in Chile over the last few years with the arrival of international gangs, part of a wave of illegal migration across the country's long and porous borders. But the perception of the problem has far outstripped reality. Although three times what it was in 2015, Chile's murder rate of six homicides per 100,000 people in 2023 places it nowhere near the most dangerous countries in Latin America."
Jose Antonio Kast, a 60-year-old far-right politician, won Chile's presidential election in December with 58% of the vote by campaigning on strict crime prevention and immigration control. Residents in his hometown of Paine and across Chile express significant fear of crime, citing robberies, guns, and drugs as pervasive problems. While violent crime has increased in recent years due to international gangs and illegal migration, Chile's actual murder rate of six per 100,000 people in 2023 ranks it among the safest in Latin America, far below Ecuador, Haiti, Mexico, and Colombia. Public perception of crime severity substantially exceeds statistical reality, driving voters toward Kast's iron-fisted policy proposals.
#chilean-politics #crime-and-security #public-perception-vs-reality #far-right-politics #immigration
Read at www.theguardian.com
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