Kast Chile Approval Drops Another 4 Points to a Term Low

Eight weeks into a presidency that won the largest popular mandate in modern Chilean history, the political honeymoon is over and the approval slope is starting to look familiar.

The Kast Chile approval reading fell to 29.1 percent in the second-half-of-April Pulso Ciudadano survey, its lowest level since the right-wing leader took office on March 11. The Rio Times, the Latin American financial news outlet, reports that the Activa Research poll surveyed 1,009 respondents nationally between April 29 and 30 with a 3.1 percentage-point margin of error, and confirms the trajectory the firm flagged in its mid-April reading of 33.3 percent.

Disapproval rose to 55.6 percent, and the confidence indicator deteriorated faster than the approval line. Only 23.6 percent of respondents said they had high or total confidence in Kast, down from the 36 percent reading taken when he was president-elect in December.

What Is Driving the Kast Chile Approval Slide

The economy now leads the agenda. Pulso Ciudadano’s net concern index for the economy reached 78.7 percent in April, ahead of security at 72.5 percent, the second consecutive month in which financial worries displaced crime as the top public concern. Almost half of respondents, 49.2 percent, described the country’s economic situation as bad or very bad.

The fuel-price shock from the Iran-related oil spike has done much of the damage. After the government’s decision in March not to apply the MEPCO stabilisation mechanism, gasoline rose 32 percent and diesel 62 percent, triggering cacerolazo protests at a scale not seen since the 2019 estallido social. Inflation expectations and small-business cost pressure have followed.

Where the Cabinet and Reform Programme Stand

Cabinet support sits even lower than the president’s. Just 24.1 percent approve of how ministers are performing, against 62.7 percent disapproval, a sign that the political cost is spreading beyond Kast personally to the team running the government. Among self-identified right-wing voters Kast still polls 65.7 percent, but he is at 18.1 percent with independents and 7.2 percent on the left.

The number that should worry La Moneda is the country-direction reading. Forty-six percent now say Chile is on the wrong track against 31.6 percent who say the right one, a 14-point swing in optimism since March. The same survey shows 48.7 percent supporting public-spending cuts but 48.1 percent saying they have little or no confidence in the Finance Ministry under Jorge Quiroz to make those cuts without touching social benefits.

Why the Kast Chile Approval Number Matters for Markets

For the reform agenda, the political cost is direct. The 40-plus measure Reconstruction and Economic and Social Development bill filed on April 22 needs cross-aisle votes Kast does not control, and approval-rating capital is the currency for that negotiation. The corporate tax cut from 27 percent to 23 percent over three years and the 25-year tax-invariability guarantee are the centrepieces both sides agree are most exposed to dilution.

Survey data on the privatisation question reinforces the constraint. Pulso Ciudadano shows 55.1 percent rejecting any privatisation of state copper miner Codelco, 54.7 percent against ENAP and 54.3 percent against BancoEstado. Whatever the technical merits of restructuring at any of the three, the political base is not yet there.

The Boric Mirror

Activa Research embedded a comparative reading in this round. At the same eight-week mark of the previous government, in April 2022, Boric polled 24.2 percent approval — Kast is 4.9 points higher. The trajectory, however, mirrors Boric’s 2022 slide almost step for step, after a different ideological starting point and on a different policy stack.

For Chilean asset allocators and sovereign-debt watchers, the Kast Chile approval reading is now part of the risk arithmetic alongside the IPSA’s near-record level and Chile’s still-favourable EMBI spread of 90 basis points. The approval data does not yet override either, but it shifts the political-risk calculation on the megareform from probable to contested.

Eight weeks in, the largest mandate in Chilean modern history is being tested by the gap between an emergency-government framing and the operational difficulty of cutting fuel subsidies during an oil shock. The next two Pulso Ciudadano readings will tell whether 29.1 percent is a floor or a step.