Caracas Chronicles

Last Sunday, Chileans elected right-wing politician José Antonio Kast as their next President in a landslide–or, since it’s Chile, an up-and-down-slide. Kast thumped government candidate Jeannette Jara, despite his controversial, often unapologetic affinity to folks such as Donald Trump, Javier Milei or Bibi Netanyahu, his past admiration for Augusto Pinochet, or even his father’s links to the Nazi party. 

Jara’s defeat holds two main lessons. 

One, that in the times we are living in, it’s better to be authentically extremist than to try to come across as an inauthentic centrist dissembler.

And two, Latin Americans have had it with chavismo-madurismo. The times when chavistas could campaign for you and it would actually work … are long gone. Right now, there is nobody more toxic in Latin American politics than Nicolás Maduro. 

Jara, a proud member of Chile’s Communist Party since the age of fourteen, is a former Labor Minister for the unpopular Gabriel Boric. In spite of her past, Jara did not run as a radical, but rather as a moderate who could engage in dialogue to push for common-sense reforms, even calling herself the standard bearer for “the center left.”

Imagine that–a communist trying to come across as “center left.”

For a while, it seemed it could work. She came in first place in the first round of voting, and she ran a somewhat disciplined campaign chock-full of Chile’s former Concertación political royalty. But a deep mistake she made just days before the election underscored how challenging it was for a member of the Communist party to get elected in this environment. 

Five days before Chile’s Presidential Election, Jara made what seemed to be an innocent remark about Venezuelan leader Maria Corina Machado. 

For any politician, being inauthentic is a capital sin in today’s world.

When asked about Machado on the very day she escaped Venezuela to receive the Nobel Peace Prize she so richly deserves, Jara said “it’s clear there are differing opinions regarding Ms. Machado. I don’t know her personally; I only know what I see on television, and I know she has been involved in several coup attempts, as well as trying to promote free elections.”

The uproar was notable. Kast himself was aghast at her comment, and the controversy raged on for days. It provided an opening to remind people of the deep loyalty Chile’s Communist Party has toward Nicolás Maduro. 

It wasn’t the reason she lost, but it certainly contributed. 

Gabriel Boric is left-wing, but that has not stopped him from publicly condemning the Maduro regime. The Boric administration was flabbergasted that Maduro and Diosdado Cabello came to Chile to murder a dissident, and his government has been vocal about his disgust at Maduro’s antics. Jara herself went out of her way to label Maduro a dictator, although she wavered when it came to Cuba. 

Nevertheless, it is not enough anymore to try to attack Maduro from the left. Any hint of sympathy for the horrors in Venezuela makes you come across as a radical who sides with the guy causing the largest migrant crisis the modern world has seen. Any attempt to explain past support for chavismo or for Cuba conveys the message that you are hiding something.

For any politician, being inauthentic is a capital sin in today’s world. For months Jara and her team debated whether she should resign from the Communist Party, but the risk of coming across as opportunistic and inauthentic outweighed the possible benefits. Up until the very end, she frequently said the right things when asked about Venezuela. Sadly, the tufillo del chavismo was too much for her to overcome.

How much of a liability the Maduro regime becomes for left-wing candidates depends on the circumstances in each country. The recent success of Claudia Scheinbaum, Gustavo Petro, Yamandú Orsi or Lula da Silva certainly suggests the subcontinent’s left is alive.

But is it alive and well? 

Only time will tell. What Chile shows us is that, amid a refugee crisis, with crime the top concern for the population, and many people linking it to immigration, left-wing politicians better have a good speech distancing themselves from the guy causing this mess. 

You need to say the right things, not mess up, and hope people talk about something else. Otherwise, your political alliances –past or present– may become your death knell.