There's nothing left

Exactly one year ago, on November 16, 2025, an impetuous politician advanced to the runoff, became the sole candidate of the opposition, and thereby secured the presidency of Chile. A year later, what remains of that politician and of his promises? Kast won by opposing everything in his political career. Everything: the distribution of the morning-after pill and the creation of the Ministry of Security; the Cholito Law and equal marriage; the constitutional agreement and the pension reform that increased the PGU; the governments of Aylwin, Frei, Lagos, Bachelet, Piñera, and Boric. He didn't just oppose. He turned his opposition to everything into a moral stance, in which he held the monopoly on truth, and those willing to negotiate were cowards, bowed before the "gay dictatorship" or the "woke dictatorship" (everything was a dictatorship, except the dictatorship, the only government he supported with enthusiasm). To save that Chile that was "falling to pieces," the "emergency government" arrived, with two promises of substance (security and the economy), and one of form: a decisive president who would roll up his sleeves to solve those problems immediately, and bring order and prosperity to Chileans. A year later, we know there was no security plan at all, and when there finally was one, it was an attack on citizens' rights that not even his supporters backed, and that the government had to withdraw from Congress. The immediate expulsion of migrants was a metaphor/hyperbole. The commitment to 100,000 new prison places was false. The promise of an iron fist on public order revealed its double standard this week. All it takes is for students or workers to set one foot in the street for them to be gassed, but truckers blocked highways and the government asked them to please not do it. Hours later, the offer improved: please don't do it, and besides, we're freezing prices until February. A few hours later: please, pretty please, and besides, we're withdrawing the last price hike. And a few hours later: oh come on, pretty please, and besides, we're lowering it by 142 pesos and freezing until March and besides, we're refunding 90% of the tax, but please stop doing the dance, it brings back bad memories. The balance: 900 million dollars and the extension of tax benefits for a guild already overflowing with privileges. Meanwhile, to confront the drama of one million unemployed Chileans: a mere 100 million dollars in employment subsidies for a couple of months. On the economy, Quiroz managed, through a fuel-price stunt and catastrophist rhetoric, an unprecedented feat: we are in recession while the world, and Latin America, are growing (3.1% and 2.3% respectively). Nothing like this had ever happened in Chile's modern history. The government took office with a 2.6% growth projection, and we're now at 0.0%. Unemployment? From 800,000 to one million jobless. (Or perhaps that really was the master plan to curb migration? Migrants go to prosperous countries, not to economies in recession.) They promised to cut six billion dollars in fiscal waste, they even staked their jobs on it ("ask me to resign"), and nothing. They insulted public servants as "parasites," and then opened a long line of embassies as consolation prizes, with students and recent graduates on million-peso salaries, turned the second floor into a refuge for everyone who got fired, and now invented a new position ("security attaché in Paraguay") for a former minister. Even more important is the personal metamorphosis of José Antonio Kast. The politician who demanded heads roll every day, who tore into presidents for traveling abroad, who even spoke of a president's resignation because her approval was approaching 20%, now displays a striking placidity in the face of his government's crisis. If the Minister of Justice signs releases for pedophiles, and then lies to the country and to Congress about it, nothing happens. If unemployment surpasses one million, the president shrugs, says "we're doing our part" and now it's up to business owners to hire. The impetuous preacher, the Savonarola who demanded radical action to save a society in decline, transmuted into a placid village parish priest, who asks for patience and understanding, because, someday, somehow, who knows how, "everything is going to be fine." How? When? With what plan? The ways of God are mysterious. More than a politician concerned with the here and now of his compatriots, he seems to have adopted the temperament of Gaudí when asked when his masterpiece would be finished. "My client is in no hurry," he would reply. What matters is advancing step by step on The Work: cutting taxes for companies and the richest, rubber-stamping all kinds of projects, quietly advancing the privatization of Codelco. The suffering of the here and now? I don't know what you're talking about, after all "Chile is back." Back to what? Once again, a mystery. Such negligence is dangerous. The latest Criteria poll asks about the phrase "everything is going to be fine." The six main reactions, in order: disappointment, anger, hope, contempt, sadness, and fear. Anger and contempt, the feeling of being insulted, are emotions a government should take more seriously. The Citizen Panel identifies the 20% who remain Kast's hard-core support. And it makes an important finding: he has barely nine points left of the 24 that supported him in the first round. The rest of his support comes from Káiser voters (six) and other candidates' voters (five). The apolitical voter who believed in his promises has already abandoned him; what remains is a hard vote, "loyal to an identity and an ideology," says the study. Of course, the government has given them something: tax cuts, loyalty to the international radical right bloc, signals of sympathy toward churches and anti-abortion organizations, and of antipathy toward the world of culture and human rights. That remains. Of everything else, of that impetuous politician who promised immediate solutions, who committed to decisive action to impose law and order, bring jobs and prosperity, clean the fat out of the State, and ease the pains of Chileans; of those promises and, more importantly, of the politician who embodied them, nothing remains.