By Fabian Cambero and Sarah Morland
SANTIAGO, Dec 11 (Reuters) - After falling short in two previous presidential runs, Jose Antonio Kast is now the runaway favorite to win the Chilean presidency on Sunday, a sign of how his far-right anti-immigrant views have gained a wave of new support amid fears about increased crime.
Kast, 59, came a narrow second to leftist Jeannette Jara in November's first round but opinion polls suggest he will pick up most of the votes from three other right-wing candidates who fell short.
He lost to leftist President Gabriel Boric in 2021, a time when his hardline policies were out of step with an electorate rattled by the pandemic, widespread protests against inequality, and hopes of drafting a new constitution.
But now sentiment has shifted and his proposals are resonating with voters overwhelmingly concerned about crime and immigration.
While Chile remains one of the safest countries in Latin America, an influx of organized crime has led to a rising murder rate and hurt economic growth, with a recent spike in high-profile incidents like kidnappings and assassinations. Right-wing candidates have blamed the rising crime on increasing numbers of migrants.
Chileans are struggling with the dual shocks of spikes in migration and crime, said Lucia Dammert, a sociologist at the University of Santiago who specializes in organized crime in Latin America, but she added "most of the people in prison are Chilean and most of the gangs are run by Chileans."
As well as a crime crackdown, Kast has vowed to build border walls and form a specialized police force modeled on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, tasked with tracking down and deporting migrants in the country illegally. Government data shows the majority are Venezuelans.
Such migrants had 92 days - the time until his possible inauguration - to leave the country voluntarily, Kast said in the final televised debate with Jara on Tuesday evening, asking Boric to open up a "humanitarian corridor" to allow them to leave.
"After those 92 days, anyone who requests any state service — whether in health, education, transport, for a remittance, for a contract, or to sell something — that person will be registered and will be invited to leave," he said.
EL SALVADOR INSPIRATION
Kast has taken inspiration from the U.S. for his tough-on-borders approach, and last year visited the Salvadoran mega-prisons built by President Nayib Bukele, a model his platform calls for emulating.
Jara has also vowed to limit migration, but has said she would do it without mass deportations. She has campaigned on her record as labor minister, pushing through popular policies like pension reform, a reduced work week and an increased minimum wage.
Kast's success would make Chile the latest Latin American country to tilt right after Bolivia's election in August and President Javier Milei's success in Argentina's midterm vote in October.
Like Milei, Kast - a Catholic with nine children - has expressed strong objections to abortion. He has previously said he would repeal Chile's limited abortion rights and ban sales of the morning-after pill, though he has largely focused on other issues during his campaign. Polls show public opinion overwhelmingly supports maintaining existing abortion rights.
His economic plan involves more flexible labor laws, cuts to corporate taxes and less regulation - though he is expected to moderate planned spending cuts widely seen as unrealistic.
PINOCHET LINKS
Kast is the son of a German immigrant, a Nazi party member and army lieutenant who fled to South America after World War Two, where he eventually founded a lucrative sausage business in Paine, south of Santiago. Kast has said his father was a forced Nazi conscript.
Kast has been married to Maria Pia Adriasola, a lawyer who has frequently campaigned at his side, for more than three decades.
His eldest brother, Miguel Kast, was a government minister and central bank president in the early 1980s under the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, during which some 40,000 people were executed, detained and disappeared. One of the so-called Chicago Boys who pioneered shock therapy economics, he pushed deregulation and privatizations.
As a law student, Jose Kast campaigned for the "yes" vote in a referendum on whether Pinochet should remain in power in 1988, a vote that Pinochet lost.
After serving as a congressman for the right-wing Independent Democratic Union (UDI) party for more than a decade, Kast stepped down in 2016 to pursue the presidency as an independent but ended up winning less than 10% of the vote. He gained more traction in 2021 running under the banner of his self-founded Republican Party.
His style is quite different to that of Milei or Bukele, said Nicholas Watson, Latin America managing director at Teneo.
"He is much less flamboyant and more reserved. He is also more of a political insider; he has not burst onto the political scene in the way that Milei did."
As such, Chileans view Kast as a familiar face with over two decades of political experience, said David Altman, a political scientist at Chile's Pontifical Catholic University, adding that Kast benefited from growing rejection of Boric's incumbent government.
"It's not that people became more fascist in the space of four years," he said. "People abandoned the left and as there essentially was not a political center, they went right. It was the only place where they could land."
(Reporting by Fabian Cambero, Sarah Morland, Alexander Villegas and Lucinda Elliott; Writing by Sarah Morland and Rosalba O'Brien;)
