Spanish
Guayaquil.- Ecuador's President Daniel Noboa congratulated far-rightist José Antonio Kast on his victory in Chile's presidential elections this Sunday and stated that "a new stage opens for Chile and the region."
"Congratulations José Antonio Kast. A new stage opens for Chile and the region. From Ecuador we reaffirm our willingness to deepen the joint work," wrote the president on his X social media account.
Like Noboa, the conservative former Ecuadorian President Guillermo Lasso (2021 - 2023) congratulated the elected president "for his resounding victory" and assured that "his leadership will strengthen a firm and strategic cooperation between Chile and Ecuador".
Kast won this Sunday's Chilean presidential elections, defeating the leftist Jeannette Jara, former Minister of Labor of the current president, Gabriel Boric, by a wide margin, with more than 99% of the votes counted.
According to preliminary data from the Electoral Service (Servel), the 59-year-old ultra-Catholic former deputy obtains 58.18% of the votes against 41.82% of Boric's 51-year-old former minister.
The president-elect, who campaigned in favor of the continuation of General Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) in the 1988 plebiscite, is the first Pinochet supporter to reach La Moneda since the return to democracy.
With strong ties to other ultra leaders in the region, Kast has promised the mass expulsion of migrants, to classify migration as a crime, or the construction of maximum security prisons with total isolation for drug trafficking leaders.
