The Kast Cadem Grade Is 3.4 Out of 7, and in Chile That Is a Failing Mark
CHILE · GOVERNMENT
Key Facts
- —The president José Antonio Kast, a hard-line conservative, took office in March with the biggest vote Chile has ever cast.
- —The question Pollsters asked Chileans to grade his first six months on the scale used in their schools.
- —The answer An average of 3.4 out of 7. Four is the pass mark, so this is a fail.
- —The cause he names A fuel price shock in March and unemployment now running at 9.5%.
- —What people name The same two things. They simply disagree that the fuel decision was necessary.
- —The catch His grade has not fallen. This is the first time anyone asked the question.
Chile marks schoolwork from one to seven, and four is a pass. Everyone in the country understood the number instantly.
Chilean schoolchildren are marked from one to seven, and four divides passing from failing. Every adult carries that scale in their head, which is why the Kast Cadem grade needed no explaining.
Pollsters asked Chileans to grade six months of President José Antonio Kast. The answer came back at 3.4.
How He Got Here
Kast is a conservative of the harder kind, long on the margins of Chilean politics and suddenly at its centre. He won the December 2025 runoff with 58.1% of the vote.
That was 7.26 million votes, the largest total any candidate has received in Chilean history. He took office on 11 March 2026.
The fieldwork for this poll was done on 11 September, the exact six-month mark. The timing was deliberate.
Approval has fallen steadily since. At the hundred-day mark in June he stood at 44%, and he is now at 34% with 62% disapproving.
That is the highest disapproval of his term. It is also a ten-point fall in three months.
The Week Petrol Jumped a Third
To understand the number you have to go back to March, and to a mechanism most Chileans had never thought about. It is called MEPCO, and it smooths fuel prices at the pump.
When world oil rises, the state absorbs part of the increase. When it falls, the state takes the money back.
By March the absorbing was costing around US$140m a week. Continuing it through the year was costed at up to US$4bn.
On 23 March the finance minister announced that the state would stop absorbing. Three days later the accumulated increase hit the pump in a single week.
Ninety-three octane petrol rose 372 pesos a litre, about US$0.39. Diesel rose 580 pesos, about US$0.61, which for a working driver was the whole margin.
In Santiago that took a litre of 93 octane from 1,168.9 to 1,538.9 pesos, about US$1.60. Chileans named it the bencinazo, roughly the petrol-whack, and the word stuck.
Prices have not stopped climbing since. The adjustment on 10 September was the third consecutive rise, adding about US$0.04 a litre to petrol.
What the President Says
Kast went on Radio Agricultura on Monday morning and did not argue with the number. He has always said, he told listeners, that one must speak the truth and the truth hurts.
On fuel he made the fiscal case directly. The alternative urged by some, he said, was to borrow.
And had the country borrowed, he asked, how would it now pay for disasters and for housing? Different countries chose different formulas, he said, and Chile chose responsibility.
On unemployment he pointed backwards. The lack of work was evident for forty months before he arrived, and the country is still paying the consequences.
He put the figure at roughly 900,000 people without work. The official rate is 9.5%, measured over May to July and published on 28 August.
It has risen at every release this year, from 8.3% in February through 9.1% and 9.4%. Among women it stands at 10.3%.
The Uncomfortable Symmetry
Asked what the government has done worst, 38% of respondents named passing fuel prices on to consumers. Another 32% named weak growth and rising unemployment.
Those are precisely the two things Kast himself blamed. The president and the electorate agree entirely on the diagnosis.
Where they part is on whether the fuel decision was the right one. He says responsibility, and a plurality of Chileans says mistake.
On the credit side, 17% name cutting public spending and ordering the accounts. Border control and prison policy each score 12%.
Two Things Worth Knowing About the Number
The 3.4 is not a decline, because nothing preceded it. Cadem asked this question once, framed around the six-month anniversary, and there is no earlier grade to fall from.
The poll also carries no margin of error, and none should be quoted. It is a non-probabilistic online panel of a thousand people, weighted but not randomly drawn.
Nor do Chile’s pollsters agree this week, so the Kast Cadem grade is one reading among several. Criteria had him rising a point to 31% on 13 September.
In the same days Cadem had him sliding to 34%, with disapproval at a record. The two houses are three points apart on approval and seven on disapproval.
More: Chile news in English, every day from The Rio Times.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Kast Cadem grade?
An average of 3.4 on the one-to-seven scale Chilean schools use, where four is a pass. It was published on 13 September 2026 from fieldwork done on 11 September.
Did his grade fall?
No earlier grade exists. The question was asked once, framed around the six-month mark. His approval rating, which does have a history, has fallen from 44% in June to 34%.
What was the bencinazo?
A change in March 2026 to MEPCO, Chile’s fuel price smoothing mechanism. The state stopped absorbing accumulated global increases, and petrol rose about US$0.39 a litre in one week.
What is Chile’s unemployment rate?
9.5% for the May to July quarter, published on 28 August 2026, up 0.8 points on the year. It has risen at every release in 2026.
How big was his election win?
58.1% of the vote in the December 2025 runoff, some 7.26 million votes. That is the largest total any candidate has received in Chilean history.
Sources: Cadem study 689 and its technical sheet, Cooperativa, The Clinic, La Nación, La Tercera, Emol and Chile’s National Statistics Institute.
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