A political ally of Kast, Juan Antonio Coloma, is Chile’s new ambassador to Spain

Eduardo González Chilean President José Antonio Kast has appointed lawyer and politician Juan Antonio Coloma Correa, a member of the Independent Democratic Union (UDI), a right-wing party within the current governing coalition, as ambassador to Spain. Coloma's appointment was officially announced on May 26 by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, along with those of the new Chilean ambassadors to China, Mexico, Sweden, and Belgium. According to the Ministry's press release, "all of them have already received their respective agréments." Juan Antonio Coloma was born in Santiago in July 1956 (and is therefore about to turn seventy). A lawyer from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and a member of the Independent Democratic Union (UDI)—of which he was general secretary (1994-2001), vice president (2002-2004), and president (2008-2012)—he was a member of the Council of State between 1977 and 1989 (during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet), a member of the Chamber of Deputies between 1990 and 2002, a senator between 2002 and 2026, and president of the Senate between March 2023 and March 2024. He also chaired the Standing Committee on Foreign Relations and participated in the Chilean-German interparliamentary group. Coloma's party, the UDI, is part of the right-wing coalition Chile Vamos (ChV), which, in turn, is part of the Kast government, along with the Republican Party of Chile, the president's far-right party, and several independent ministers. José Antonio Kast assumed the presidency on March 11, after defeating leftist Jeannette Jara in the second round of the presidential elections on December 14, 2025. His term will end in 2030. Kast had previously run for president twice, in 2017 and 2021. In 1988, the current Chilean president voted "Yes" in the referendum on the continuation of the dictatorial regime of César Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), whom he has declared himself an admirer of.

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