Chilean President-elect Jose Antonio Kast has named two lawyers who defended dictator Augusto Pinochet to his new cabinet. The far-right leader said his picks were “not the result of quotas, calculations or pressure.”
Chile’s far-right President-elect Jose Antonio Kast named his cabinet picks on Tuesday ahead of his inauguration on March 11, 2026.
Controversially, the new cabinet picks include two ex-lawyers of dictator Augusto Pinochet, who brutally ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990.
Pinochet’s rule saw more than 3,200 people dead or missing and the torture and imprisonment of tens of thousands more.
Fernando Rabat, who defended Pinochet in a case of embezzlement of public funds, will lead the justice and human rights ministry, which is still overseeing cases linked to the dictatorship.
Families of Pinochet regime victims condemn Rabat’s appointment
Human rights groups and family members of people executed and disappeared during Pinochet’s reign criticized Rabat’s nomination when rumors of the 53-year-old’s appointment leaked.
“It constitutes a direct offense to the memory of the victims of the dictatorship and their families,” the Association of Relatives of Detained and Disappeared Persons wrote last week. “It reaffirms a history of apologizing for the dictatorship and a commitment to impunity.”
Kast, a Pinochet admirer who won a landslide election victory in December, also named 68-year-old Fernando Barros as defense minister.
Barros led Pinochet’s defense while he was detained in London in 1998 at the request of the Spanish courts, which sought his extradition to try him for crimes against humanity.
Pinochet died in 2006 at the age of 91 without being convicted on any of the charges.
Cabinet result of ‘deep conviction,’ Kast says
Kast also appointed economist Jorge Quiroz as finance minister, Francisco Perez Mackenna as minister of foreign affairs and Daniel Mas to head the mining ministry.
Chile is the world’s largest copper producer and second-largest lithium producer.
“This cabinet is not the result of quotas, calculations or pressure. It is the result of a deep conviction and a common vocation: to always put Chile first,” Kast said at a ceremony in Santiago where he unveiled his cabinet.
Media investigations have revealed Kast’s German-born father was a member of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party and a soldier during World War II.
The president-elect is also staunch Catholic known for opposing abortion and same-sex marriage.
Edited by: Zac Crellin
DW News
