Chile’s president-elect Kast unveils Cabinet: Few party members, business allies and drug tests

On Tuesday night, José Antonio Kast, Chile’s far-right president-elect, officially announced the 24 ministers who will join his government starting March 11. The Cabinet will be led by Claudio Alvarado, a seasoned politician from the Independent Democratic Union party (UDI). Alvarado — who has experience in both Parliament and the executive (he previously served as a minister under president Sebastián Piñera) — will take over the Ministry of the Interior.

As a team, the Cabinet stands out for having few party members, despite many appointees’ historical ties to the economic and political right. Several key ministers come directly from the business world, including Francisco Pérez Mackenna, who will become Foreign Minister. A key consideration was that Kast personally trusted the ministers. Another requirement for all appointees was passing a hair test for drug use.

Of the 24 ministers, 16 are not party members. This is the Cabinet for the “emergency government” Kast wants to launch. During his campaign, the president-elect promised such a government to pull Chile out of the crisis he believes the country is experiencing, although his view is clearly not shared by President Gabriel Boric or the ruling coalition.

“Chile needs decisive action, character, a government that acts promptly. Therefore, today I present to you a Cabinet for an emergency government. A team that will end the inertia. There is no time to lose,” said Kast, who arrived at the event with his wife, Pía Adriasola, and greeted his nine children, seated in the front row.

The government team, which will take office on March 11, will have two main priorities: fighting crime and boosting the economy. As Minister of Security, Kast has appointed Trinidad Steinert, who until this Tuesday served as Attorney General in Tarapacá and has been key in combating organized crime in northern Chile, including the Tren de Aragua. Kast introduced her first.

On the economic front, the team will be led by economist Jorge Quiroz, who will head the Ministry of Finance and shares the president-elect’s sense of urgency for a change in direction. “Reaching 4% growth [...] requires massive, no-nonsense changes,” Quiroz has said previously. Alongside Daniel Mas Valdés, who will become Minister of Economy, he will focus on excessive regulation that, in his view, hampers investment. In Chile, this problem is commonly referred to as permisología i.e. excessive red tape.

The incoming Foreign Minister, Pérez Mackenna, comes directly from one of Chile’s leading business groups, the Luksic Group, where he had served since 1998 as general manager of the investment group Quiñenco. He was the right-hand man of Andrónico Luksic, one of the wealthiest figures in Chile and Latin America.

Santiago Montt was originally slated to head the Ministry of Mining, though neither Kast nor his inner circle announced his entry into the Cabinet — most other names had been leaked weeks ago. Instead, the announcement came on Tuesday from Andes Copper, the mining company where Montt Oyarzún was CEO. His appointment to the government hit a snag: Mas Valdés instead will assume the Mining and Energy portfolios as a dual minister.

Two influential lawyers who had defended dictator Augusto Pinochet in various cases, including his 1998 arrest in London (the Pinochet case), are also joining Kast’s Cabinet. Fernando Barros will take over as Minister of Defense, and Fernando Rabat will become Minister of Justice and Human Rights — a nomination that has sparked outrage among dictatorship victims’ groups ever since it became public several days ago. Barros will be responsible, together with the president, for sensitive issues such as pardons.

Although Kast avoided publicly identifying as a supporter of the Pinochet regime during his presidential campaign, as he had done in his two previous election campaigns (in 2017 and 2021), he also did not clarify whether he would pardon those convicted of human rights violations who are currently serving time, such as former agent Miguel Krassnoff, who has accumulated sentences totaling more than 1,000 years in prison.

Kast’s future government’s political committee, together with Interior Minister Alvarado, will include José García, a member of National Renewal (RN) — a traditional right-wing party like the UDI — who will handle relations with Parliament from the Secretariat General of the Presidency (SEGPRES). The government’s spokesperson will be Mara Sedini.

A commercial engineer and communications professional, Sedini is not a member of Kast’s Republican Party of Chile (PRCh), but she joined the president-elect’s team during the campaign to offer her collaboration. An actress and journalist, 40 years old, she joined the campaign in September and, since Kast’s election, has served as spokesperson for the Office of the President-Elect (OPE).

The team also includes people who previously belonged to other political worlds: Ximena Rincón, a current senator who spent years in the Christian Democratic Party (DC) and gradually shifted toward the right through her party, the Democrats. She served as a minister in Michelle Bachelet’s second government and will now take over as Minister of Energy.

Jaime Campos has been appointed Minister of Agriculture. He previously served as a minister under the socialist governments of Ricardo Lagos and Michelle Bachelet, as part of the center-left Concert of Parties for Democracy coalition. Campos is a member of the Radical Party (PR), which is currently part of Boric’s governing coalition.

The two key figures for Kast, Cristián Valenzuela and Alejandro Irarrázabal, will not be part of the Cabinet. Starting in March, they will take on strategic roles behind the scenes. They will accompany the president at the Palacio de La Moneda, which Kast will also use as his residence — a practice that has not occurred in Chile since the mid-20th century.

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