José Antonio Kast Rist (born 18 January 1966), often referred to by his initials JAK, is a Chilean lawyer and conservative politician, presently standing as the Republican Party’s candidate in the 2025 Chilean general election.
Born into a German immigrant family in Santiago, Kast was a member of the Independent Democratic Union Party until 2016, eventually forming the conservative Chilean Republican Party and the think tank Republican Ideas in 2019. He previously ran for president as an independent candidate in the 2017 Chilean general election, and founded the Republican Action Movement (Acción Republicana) in 2018.
During his 2017 presidential campaign, Kast adopted a forthright and unconventional approach that drew significant public attention. He expressed a favourable assessment of certain aspects of the Pinochet era, while reaffirming traditional conservative views on issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage and irregular migration.
In the 2021 presidential election, he once again stood as a candidate, winning the first round before being defeated in the run-off by Gabriel Boric, the representative of the broad left coalition. From 2021 onward, Kast has gradually adopted a more moderate tone on several of his earlier positions, seeking to position himself as a pragmatic voice within Chile’s conservative spectrum while retaining recognition as one of the country’s most prominent figures associated with right-leaning populism.
He served as the president of the international organization Political Network for Values between 2022 and 2024. Kast is married to María Pía Adriasola; the couple has nine children. He is a practising Catholic and a member of the Schoenstatt Apostolic Movement.
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