Alejandro San Francisco: "President Kast rejects transactional politics with political parties"

It took historian and academic from the University of Tarapacá Alejandro San Francisco six months to write "El camino político de José Antonio Kast" (The Political Path of José Antonio Kast), a book covering several decades of the president's career, marked by his time in the gremialista movement, his militancy in and later break with the UDI, the founding of the Republican Party, and his various presidential candidacies until reaching La Moneda. With the perspective of someone who has devoted himself to analyzing the current president, San Francisco explains the crisis facing the government stemming from the decision of Justice Minister Fernando Rabat to grant benefits—without waiting for the Supreme Court's ruling—to abusers of minors. President Kast has decided to keep his Justice Minister, Fernando Rabat, despite an error that the president himself has acknowledged as serious. Is this a test of his leadership? It is a demonstration of the kind of leadership he has, and several things are mixed in here. He came to the conviction that what he must do is keep the Justice Minister because that is what the Constitution mandates, in the sense that this decision is exclusively the president's; because he believes it was a mistake, but that this does not disqualify him as a minister; or because they cannot force his hand on this point. Well, once the decision is made, he will persist in it. It is part of his trajectory; it is what has at times been called: I have forward gear, but no reverse gear. The only part that is different, but that is circumstantial, is that it is strange that a ministerial problem—which happens in all governments—has turned into a presidential problem: the historical and political rule in Chile is that ministers are fuses, and that is what keeps a case from reaching the president of the Republic, but in this case it was exactly the reverse: in the end the minister flooded La Moneda, and La Moneda, as it were, opened the tap and let itself be flooded. Why does the president turn a crisis that could have been contained, as you rightly say, into one that reaches La Moneda? Because he is convinced. Two things are mixed here that are constitutional elements, though one could say the issue is not constitutional but political. One, that they want to accuse the minister of having violated the Constitution and the laws, and that is deeply unjust, because he has not violated the Constitution and the laws; therefore he must be defended, because that is not right. And two, the constitutional prerogatives. This is an issue that has run throughout Chile's history, particularly in the second half of the nineteenth century. Who appoints the cabinet? That was Balmaceda's fight, Arturo Alessandri Palma's fight; that is, the cabinet is appointed by the president, and in fact the Constitution says "appoint and remove at will." In other words, I could have the worst minister and appoint him, and I could have my best minister and remove him. Why? Because it is at will; I don't have to give explanations. Well, if these two things are being debated, on both of them the president wants to establish doctrine or remind everyone that this is what the Constitution and the law say. Shouldn't that logic incorporate other factors, such as the majority sentiment within the governing coalition itself or public opinion? This also has to do with the fluctuations in popular support the president has experienced, because if you look, his position in 2017 is basically the same as in 2021. So you say, hey, but why does he persist if he only got 7.8%? Well, in the next election he got 27%. In other words, the popular will can change if circumstances change. What may be more tangled is not the need to keep a minister when you have less popular support. The issue is another: whether the parties are going to impose a governing design on the president of the Republic. So what there is, is a cockfight… In practice, if the president said "the parties asked me to remove the minister, so I removed him," that would be, in practice, not only an abdication of his constitutional responsibility but a loss of political power that could be recovered in the long run. I think that second point may be at stake in this discussion. President Kast's political history is atypical: he has made decisions or taken counterintuitive positions and reached La Moneda. But the winning formula as a candidate does not necessarily work for a president… The president of the Republic listens; he knows analysts who say what should be done, but who have never won an election. And he, on the other hand, has won elections, even though theoretically he did not know what to do. He was a marginal candidate, he divided the right, and he had a political ceiling, which was Pinochet's in 1988. In the long run he proved, in quotation marks, that he was right. I agree that what this proves is that he can be a good candidate for reaching La Moneda, but today what is at stake is how he is going to project the success of the government, and that is projected by achieving reforms that endure over time, as Bachelet did, for example, in her second government; by citizen support; or—third—by political projection, which means the possibility of winning municipal elections, and the ability to generate new leaderships for public service, that is, that a future president of the Republic, a future Senate candidate, etc., emerge from the government—something that has been quite difficult in recent years and whose outcome for him remains to be seen. 12-11-2026 ALEJANDRO SAN FRANCISCO PHOTO: PEDRO RODRIGUEZ PEDRO RODRIGUEZ So can he keep holding to the same formula? Yes, of course. I don't believe he can hold to those principles; rather, he must hold to them. The question is whether his assessment of the political reality is correct. I am convinced that President Kast has the conviction of what he must do. And the error is not there. The error could lie in the reading of the political reality. The political reality indicates that his decision united the opposition, divided the governing coalition, and sent him plummeting in the polls… First, what must be assessed is whether defending a principle and deciding to keep a minister, or defending another principle and deciding to change the minister. Both respond to principles; you can take either decision. You know the president's political history—why does he do something like this? This discussion has taken place in the past. That is, in a session of the Chamber and the Senate on June 2 and 4, 1890, in which both chambers censured the cabinet of Enrique Salvador Sanfuentes, under President Balmaceda, what corresponded at that time was for the cabinet to fall, but the president decided to keep the cabinet, which generated a constitutional crisis. Today a constitutional crisis is not generated; what is generated is a political crisis, but the principle continues to be defended. Other presidents have chosen the same formula; President Allende did it, and President Boric did it during the crisis at the Ministry of Housing—he chose to defend the Housing Minister rather than replace him. Now one could say, hey, but it was less serious. I think it was, it was less serious, but President Boric's action was exactly the same as President Kast's. In conclusion, the president defends his prerogative to appoint and remove ministers of state and, second, the situation that—in his judgment—there is no violation of the Constitution, as the opposition argues… Exactly, because in practice what would be imposed is a kind of de facto parliamentarism. What President Kast is doing is defending the presidential prerogative. Since the possibility of a constitutional accusation was raised and some jumped in—even from Chile Vamos—saying they would approve the constitutional accusation, well, there is a principle to defend: indeed, if one believes there is no violation of the Constitution and the law, that must be defended; it is a relevant matter. And lastly, I think any government and, particularly, President Kast rejects transactional politics with the political parties. In other words, what will emerge here is something different from the parliamentarism of Balmaceda or Alessandri. That is indeed an institutional problem, and the president has been clear in saying that the institutions must be rebuilt. There, too, I believe there is a principle. The threat of a constitutional accusation could have been defused if the minister had resigned… There is a prior issue, which is the mistake the Justice Minister made insofar as it struck at the government's narrative on security and the defense of children… That is the reason this situation has cost the government so dearly; since the government had raised this as one of its main banners, evidently the cost is much greater. So why did the president not decide to remove his minister? I have the impression that he believes he is a good minister, that he is a minister who still has work to do, and that the discussion became constitutionalized. Another matter is what one would have done in certain circumstances, but one has not won a single election nor is one there in La Moneda. Is at stake in this crisis what the parties' influence on the government's future will be? I think it is a underlying issue, but it is something the parties and the president should understand, because one of the two will have to give in at some point, or both. This is a government of President Kast; it is not a coalition government. The case of Patricio Aylwin was the government of Patricio Aylwin and of the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia. This is a different situation. President Kast built the government in his own image and likeness. It is not that the parties propose their best people; it is not that they say: look, the party leader goes into the government and a seat in the party remains. No, it is not like that. This is a Kastista government. The parties decide to join, but they join with two characteristics that are quite complex. One, that the government was assembled by Kast—they had no real influence on the appointments—and two, that it is a government with a clear underrepresentation of the political parties. But someone will have to give in. And I repeat, it will have to be President Kast, the parties, or both. Otherwise, this may have no solution. And if you venture a guess, who will give in? I think both, because otherwise there will be a rupture. Because things must not be assessed in terms of doctrinal categories. It seems clear to me that in Chile the president of the Republic is in charge; the head of state and head of government appoints ministers at will. That, it seems to me, nobody disputes. But in parallel, nobody disputes that laws are passed by Congress. So if a party like the UDI or Renovación Nacional says we are no longer going to vote in favor, well, the government is left without a majority. That is why I believe that in this specific, particular case, both will have to give something. And the other thing that is relevant at this historical moment, which I have not always seen in the analyses, is that it seems to me that as Chilean society, and particularly in the context of this government, we are living through what I would call a self-flagellating moment. If that self-flagellating moment ends up undermining the credibility of the president of the Republic or the credibility of the government, that is far more serious than a cabinet change. Public opinion is not understanding the president's decision or his prerogative of defending a minister… I think that rather than not understanding it, they do not share it. Worse, then. And there is much to lose there… Yes, losing public opinion is a disaster. The problem is that at this moment there was a rupture of the psychological loyalty that existed toward the government in December 2025. That is, what happened in 2025 is that Chilean society bet in an immediate, impressive way, with more than seven million votes, on Kast, and particularly because it had two convictions: one, that he would improve the state of the economy, and two, that he would improve the security situation. And in both he has had problems. I do not say failures, because the matter is ongoing; time is lacking. But he has had problems that were supposed to change as this government arrived. In security the numbers have improved, but at this specific point a decision was made that ends up benefiting criminals who have committed atrocious crimes. And that is what produces the rupture of the psychological loyalty. That is, people who say "hey, I was with this government" here say, "look, it seems I am no longer with this government." That loyalty is very hard to recover once it is broken. Of course it can be, but it is difficult.