The rapid deterioration in support for the presidency of José Antonio Kast after only two months reflects something deeper than normal electoral disappointment. It could be described as a phenomenon where a government elected as an answer to disorder suddenly becomes identified with the continuation, or intensification, of the same structural anxieties it promised to resolve.

Opinion surveys had observed what is especially important: the decline is not isolated to one policy area, but appears across legitimacy, trust, economic perception, and moral interpretation of society itself. The fact that more Chileans now associate wealth with abuse rather than merit signals a fracture in the ideological core of the Chilean neoliberal narrative1.

For decades, Chile presented itself as the Latin American republic where order, markets, and institutional discipline generated prosperity. Even late president Piñera called it a “haven in South America troubled region”, months before social protests emerged in 2019. But once citizens begin to perceive that accumulation is linked not to effort but to extraction or privilege, the moral legitimacy of the model weakens rapidly. In that context, Kast’s government faces a paradox:

  • it was elected to restore order,
  • but the very act of enforcing order risks revealing the rigidity and exhaustion of the social model itself.

We may call it “Kast law” and can be understood as follows:

The more a government attempts to restore legitimacy through authority alone, the more it exposes the structural inability of the system to satisfy social expectations.

This creates a dangerous political oscillation. The electorate moved rightward seeking security and stability during elections that led Kast to presidency, but the persistence of inflation, inequality, insecurity, and social fatigue pushes opinion back this year, toward redistributive or anti-elite sentiments. The swing appears dramatic because the underlying social energy was never truly resolved after the protests of 2019; it was only displaced.

And this is where governance becomes difficult.

The Chilean state can still administer rules, budgets, police, and institutions. But governance requires something deeper, it should include a correspondence between institutional decisions and the lived expectations of society. If citizens increasingly perceive themselves as dependent, trapped, or excluded from meaningful agency, then even technically competent policies begin to feel illegitimate.

This is “not a Greek tragedy” as renowned pundit Alberto Mayol suggested 2. It is not fate or metaphysical doom. It resembles a recurrent historical condition:

  • elites promise modernization and order,
  • society accepts discipline in exchange for mobility and recognition,
  • mobility stagnates,
  • dependence becomes visible,
  • and political consciousness shifts from aspiration to resentment.

In that moment, the system no longer absorbs tensions through gradual adaptation. Energy accumulates socially and politically. The danger is not simply protest, but the inability of institutions to metabolize conflict through ordinary channels.

Chile historically succeeded because its institutions could redirect social energy into growth, consumption, and upward mobility. My argument suggests that this mediating capacity is weakening. If so, the country may enter a phase where political authority and social desire increasingly collide directly, without intermediate buffers strong enough to stabilize the system.

The key question is not whether crisis continues, it probably will, but whether Chilean society still possesses enough immanent adaptive capacity to recombine itself without another rupture.

Reference

  1. La Cosa Nostra Survey 42 (April 2026) (retrieved 10MAY2026) https://www.encuestaslcn.cl/encuestas/encuesta-42-abril-2026/ ↩

  2. Interview Bio BIo TV (retrieved 10MAY2026) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BWnOm8Oaxk ↩