Augusto Pinochet was responsible for more than 3,000 disappearances and assassinations. On his orders, the Chilean regime tortured 40,000 people; some still bear the scars. Unsurprisingly, images of Pinochet became rare in Chile after the end of the dictatorship he imposed on his country between 1973 and 1990. That is, until 14 December 2025, when photographs of him were once more very much in evidence in Santiago during celebrations of the presidential election victory of José Antonio Kast, who proudly claims the general’s legacy.

Fourteen years ago, students took to Chile’s streets in the biggest demonstrations the country had seen since democracy was restored. They demanded free, high-quality education and an end to the neoliberal model enshrined in the 1980 constitution, an inheritance of the dictatorship. They too had an iconic figurehead whose image they displayed at their rallies: Chile’s socialist president Salvador Allende, who was elected in 1970 but overthrown by Pinochet. One student protestor, Gabriel Boric, later had a career in politics and eventually became president in 2022, all the while invoking Allende’s name. All that will change in two months, on 11 March 2026, when Kast succeeds him as head of state.

In 1973 the White House supported Pinochet’s coup. ‘I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people,’ Henry Kissinger had said a few years earlier. Now, decades later, the current US president has hailed the victory of Kast, whom he says he endorsed. Before Trump’s reelection, Washington rarely acknowledged such overt bias when it came to other nations’ affairs. But his statement was no surprise: Latin Americans know Trump takes a keen interest in their region.

‘Democracy is on trial in the coming elections in the beautiful country of Honduras on November 30th,’ Trump posted on Truth Social on 26 November. The campaign had officially ended three days (…)

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(2) Akram Belkaïd, ‘The vision thing’, Le Monde diplomatique, English edition, August 2013.

(3) Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe, When McKinsey Comes to Town: The Hidden Influence of the World’s Most Powerful Consulting Firm, Doubleday, New York, 2022.

(7) Dawud Ansari and Isabelle Werenfels, ‘Akteure im Schatten: Westliche Consultancies in der arabischen Welt’ (Actors in the shadows: Western consultancies in the Arab world), Deutsches Institut für Internationale Politik und Sicherheit, Berlin, 28 September 2023.