Chile passed the 53rd anniversary of the 1973 military coup on Friday without any official government ceremony or institutional act — a striking departure from a tradition maintained by every Chilean government since the country's return to democracy in 1990. President José Antonio Kast, a far-right politician who has previously expressed support for the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, kept to his regular schedule and travelled to the southern Los Ríos region. There was no address to the nation and no act at the presidential La Moneda palace, breaking a practice upheld annually for 35 years — including by right-leaning governments of the past.

Kast defended the absence of a commemoration by arguing that while history