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The statements by recently elected deputy Johannes Kayser's of the Republican Party (ultra-right), in which he questions the convenience of women being able to vote, generated controversy this Tuesday in Chile and unleashed a transversal wave of criticism.
In a virtual conversation that spread through social networks, the lawmaker, who belongs to the same coalition as José Antonio Kast - the ultra-right-winger who went on to the second presidential round - wondered if "it was a good idea" to allow women to vote.
"Women stop going to the park because they are afraid of immigrants who might rape them, but they keep voting for the same parties that are bringing those people, and you really wonder if the (female) right to vote was a good idea," she said.
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The images went viral, flooded social networks with criticism and earned the intervention of Women's Minister Monica Zalaquett.
"It is unacceptable that women's right to vote is called into question. We came to public life to stay and we will continue working so that more women occupy spaces of political responsibility," said the Minister.
Communist lawmaker Karol Cariola said that "Kast is a danger for all women" and that "he and his supporters believe in a world with rights only for men."
"They do not understand that we have a say, use contraceptives, that we have the right to decide about our bodies and that we have the right to vote," tweeted the parliamentarian.
Kast responded by assuring that "you have to see when the video came out and its context" and added that he "clearly" does not share Kayser's statements.
Johannes Kayser diputado electo Republicano pone en duda si las mujeres deben votar ���������� pic.twitter.com/qm4zKsk842
— Meir1 (@marcomeirone) November 23, 2021
"Johannes Kayser Republican congressman-elect questions whether women should vote."
"What we most need to have is the freedom to be able to vote and that people can participate democratically (...) He will have to give an explanation," he added.
Kayser, who will take office in March and was elected last Sunday with almost 12% support in a district in central Santiago, said in local media that there was "sarcasm" in his statements.
In his Youtube channel, called "Nacional-Libertario," he fiercely criticizes the left and irregular migration and even published a video in which he praises the shooting of prisoners in northern Chile after Augusto Pinochet's coup d'état in 1973.
"Those people were well shot," he said.
Local media also point out that he may have signed, along with 60 other people, an article in which he defended the coup d'état in an emblematic right-wing media outlet in 2019.
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