Kast's hermetic tour to the US and doubts about a meeting with Parisi

“We found out from the press.” That's what two deputies-elect from the Republican Party said to comment on the trip that their presidential letter, José Antonio Kast, began on Monday night, heading to Washington, United States.

Kast's journey, who is being accompanied by his adviser Cristián Valenzuela, remained under complete secrecy and only some of his closest circle knew of the decision. The same trend has been maintained in the first hours of the tour.

The flag-bearer team only wanted to report, in general terms, the activities of Kast, who arrived at that city at around 2:00 p.m. from Chile.

Thus, they indicated that on Tuesday after arriving in the United States, Kast had lunch with representatives of the financial and technological sectors. The entourage of the standard-bearer did not detail who came to the meeting and assured that it was a private meeting in which the candidate would address the axes of his economic proposal with a focus on the recovery of public order, fiscal responsibility and the relaunch of investments.< /b>

Later, it emerged that the vice president of Unitedhealth Group, Joel Velasco, the group that owns the main shares of Banmédica, was present at that meeting, among others.

After that lunch -which would have lasted for about three hours-, Kast gave an interview to CNN Spanish with Andrés Oppenheime, which will be broadcast this Sunday.

Later, he met with Republican Senator Marco Rubio, who is a well-known adherent of former President Donald Trump and one of the most controversial congressmen due to his style and statements regarding climate change -which has raised doubts -, and for his defense of the use of weapons by civilians.

This meeting is viewed with suspicion by a sector of the ruling party that considers that in the final stretch of the campaign it is necessary to bet on expanding the electorate towards the center and showing openness in the programmatic changes.

Republican restlessness

Although in general in Chile Podemos Más they avoided questioning the trip and said that “it would be brief”, in the Republican Party there were some who conveyed a more critical vision. Thus, in private, some argued that the standard-bearer did not generate much profit from the journey, unless he met with the former presidential letter of the People's Party (PDG) Franco Parisi, which, until the closing of this edition, did not it happened.

The latter, in fact, was an aspiration that several had in order to capture the 899,230 votes (12.8%) that the economist obtained in the first round, and which positioned him in third place in the race for La Moneda .

The same sources considered that with only a few days remaining for the run-off on December 19, a trip outside Chile took away valuable time to campaign on the ground, in contrast to the Approved Dignity candidate, Gabriel Boric, who announced that he would travel to Iquique to capture the support that Parisi obtained.

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“While the other candidate goes to the United States to speak with the powerful, with the big businessmen of the world, we are going to be here , in the neighborhoods, in the communes, with the people, with social leaders, for housing, community centers, sports and socio-environmental centers ”, Boric lashed out yesterday in the middle of a public activity.

But other voices in the ruling party considered that if Kast managed to get together with companies in the technology sector on the tour, it could help him obtain votes from young entrepreneurs more associated with that world.

Yesterday on CNN Chile, the member of the command, Ruth Hurtado, defended the journey: “The campaign officially starts on the 5th, that's where we can have campaign events. José Antonio with the encouragement, and the responsibility that being President means, decides to make this tour that is very short, in addition, but in order to achieve a glimpse of the future in our country. A government that cares about investment, growth, new technologies. It is important that a President is soaked in all this”.

An appointment with Parisi?

At the close of this edition, an eventual meeting between Kast and Parisi was still on hold. In Kast's environment they only limited themselves to saying that there were intentions and steps to make an appointment and that "anything could happen". The economist is based in that North American country and the city where he lives, Alabama, is four hours away -traveling by plane- from Washington.

All this in a scenario in which the PDG announced during the day that the citizen consultation to define its presidential standard-bearer would not be binding.

Thus, in the midst of doubts, in the ruling party they attribute the secrecy about an eventual meeting to the fact that if an appointment with Parisi does not result, it would be seen as a failure for the republican standard-bearer.

It was also unknown whether or not Kast would appear on the Bad Boys online streaming to which he was invited and in which Parisi constantly participates. Sources from that platform said that the Republican Party candidate had not given them an answer.

In any case, during the morning the spokeswoman for the command, Macarena Santelices, ruled out a meeting. "There is no agenda with Franco Parisi, I can assure you," she said, however, in the afternoon, Ruth Hurtado added that "it would be positive if he could meet with Franco, but it is not yet part of the agenda."

And he added: “If this occurs spontaneously, naturally, because he (Parisi) has called not to reveal the vote, then we cannot be pressuring him either, but if it occurs naturally it would be very important (.. .). It could be a spontaneous phone call, probably knowing Franco that José Antonio is in the United States, perhaps there could be an exchange of calls and they could set up a meeting”.

However, on social networks Kast limited himself to sharing images of his journey, such as a photo eating hamburgers and another on top of the plane. Later, a video was broadcast in which he summarized his day: "A fairly intense morning in meetings, interviews with international media, also with businessmen in the area of ​​technology, finance, showing them what our country is, this extraordinary country that has an incredible future as long as we manage to harmonize our growth with our exports”.

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