Chilean women fear re-election as right-wing president Issues of Women’s Rights

Santiago, Chile – Olga Valenzuela is waiting on a busy street in Chile in the heat of November, wearing a black T-shirt with the name “Muriel” printed on it.

Muriel, Valenzuela’s daughter, was killed four years ago by her boyfriend during an argument at their home. She was 19 years old, and her boyfriend had never been prosecuted or tried.

“I am not a politician, but I have joined this movement to hear it,” said Valenzuela, who joined thousands of women on a visit to the Chilean presidential palace on November 25 to protest against violence against women in the region. South America.

Several women accompanied him, each signing a name on his T-shirt and carrying placards denouncing domestic violence. One member of the group carried a portable image with a cut-out cardboard on the front right side presidential representativeJose Antonio Kast.

Kast, a 55-year-old devout Catholic and founder of the Republican Party, he got more votes more than any other candidate in the Chilean primary on November 21, gaining 27.91 percent. He will meet 35-year-old Gabriel Boric, a former student protest leader, on December 19.

For Valenzuela and the many women around her, fears are mounting that the Kast government may be undermining their rights to justice and escalating the violence that killed their daughters. “No one has listened to me – I have only one woman who wants justice,” Valenzuela told Al Jazeera.

“But I do not want the Kast government, it is a person who does not support women.

“I will not have grandchildren,” he added. But I want my daughter’s friends to be respectful.

‘Against the feminist movement’

UN Women has called Chile to address gender inequality, including a reduction in the number of women in politics in parliament, as well as threats of violence. In 2018, 5.8 percent of Chilean women also reported being abused in the past 12 months, the agency found.

As part of his campaign, Kast pledged to end domestic violence by imposing severe penalties on perpetrators.

However, during her 16 years in the Chamber of Deputies, she voted repeatedly against gender equality and women’s rights laws. She has reiterated her beliefs in the ancestral families and the virtues of the Catholic family, which were endorsed by feminists and backtrackers.

In her presidential campaign, Kast announced her intention to end the existing Women’s Ministry, which was established in 2017 to address gender inequality and end violence, in conjunction with the Ministry of Social Development.

Earlier this week, in an effort to attract the attention of women voters, she said she would not end the Ministry of Women “by name”, but did not return her proposal to reduce it and merge it with another department.

The program also includes plans to provide assistance to same-sex couples with children – including single women – and to prevent regular abortions, and to repeal the existing law that allows women to have abortions if they are raped, life-threatening. of the mother, or if the unborn child will not survive.

“They have a way of opposing the feminist movement and they see that their behavior contradicts the idea of ​​family,” said Paulina Vergara, a professor at the Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Chile. “(Women) have limited rights, and without them, we would not have a real democracy,” Vergara told Al Jazeera.

Right party

Kast spent a long time in his career in the Independent Democratic Union (UDI). The party was made up of MPs who held political office during the 17-year-old dictatorship of Augustus Pinochet, which ended in 1990.

Kast stepped down from the party in 2016, launching his first presidential campaign as an independent states a year later, when he was fourth and 7.9 percent of the vote. In 2019, he formed the Republican Party with the help of retired UDI members who sought a way to promote a culture that was in line with the ideals of prosperity and economics.

The party manifesto be based on the protection of life from “birth to natural death”, “belief in God”, and the idea that male and female family groups are the “foundation of humanity”. It also encourages the intervention of low-level governments and the free market economy.

“The prestige of the Republican Party is part of the right-wing transformation that is taking place around the world,” Vergara said. Poland, Hungary, and Spain as examples. “It has a Christian future, and it is very accurate and radical.”

In the November primaries, the Chileans voted 15 second from the Republican Party, 12 men and three women. Tweets and videos of the interview with his running mate, Johannes Kaiser, spread shortly after his election for his contempt for women and violence.

“62 per cent of women only think of being raped, and immediately go to the shows,” Kaiser said. tweeted in 2018. In a video released five years ago, he called immigrants “temporary” and asked if women should have the right to vote.

Kast criticized Kaiser’s remarks, forcing him to leave the Republican party a few days after his election – even though Kaiser has retained his position as second independent. Kaiser also apologized for his remarks, emphasizing his defiance.

For Vergara, this “joke” points to serious flaws in the party. “They make jokes about rape and use arguments based on freedom of speech in order to protect their views, but it does not reduce the violence,” he said.

The Republican Party did not respond to a request for comment from Al Jazeera, nor did the media coverage of the Kast President’s campaign.

But Kast has denied the allegations against women. “I am a child, a man, and a father of well-known women,” she said on the radio airing this week. “I will work hard to ensure that all women are free and peaceful.”

‘Most important’ women’s votes

However, the nature of her program has affected many women, including regular voters. Natalia Borquez is a 43-year-old dentist who has decided to vote for the man who wants to be the left president for the first time in his life this month.

“With Kast, we will lose all our rights,” she told Al Jazeera, noting that she found some aspects of Kast’s program disruptive, such as terminating the Ministry of Women and preventing permanent abortions. “Removing and denying that these things are not happening, is putting women as second citizens,” she said.

Chilean President Gabriel Boric will lead his right-wing candidate ahead of the December 19 election, according to a poll. [File: Andres Poblete/AP Photo/]

Borquez wants to vote for Boric because he “wants his vote to be important”, but still said it was not easy to make. He said some of his female friends who lean against him have decided not to vote voluntarily.

In a recent study, Boric surpassed Kast by 8 percent, putting her in a better position, when 59 percent of women surveyed said they supported Boric.

Women make up 51 percent of women Chilean election, and Vergara said women like Borquez and Valenzuela, who could use their votes to directly criticize Kast, would go a long way in electing the next president.

“In 1988, the women’s vote was the most important vote in the Pinochet government,” she said. “I hope this time history will repeat itself.”