Chile’s Kast Inherits Economic Emergency. Now His Austerity Agenda Is Bringing Students Into the Streets

SANTIAGO, CHILE — José Antonio Kast won Chile’s presidency in December with 58% of the vote — one of the most decisive mandates in the country’s recent democratic history. Less than three months into his government, thousands of students are clashing with police in the streets of Santiago over the price of that mandate.

Thousands of students, teachers, and social activists marched through the Chilean capital on Wednesday in a massive demonstration against Kast’s education cuts and austerity measures, clashing with police during what became one of the largest protests since the new government took office on March 11.

Students threw Molotov cocktails as police pushed back on the demonstrations with water cannons. The images from downtown Santiago traveled across the hemisphere within hours — and in Colombia, where a right-wing candidate faces his own runoff in three weeks, they were being shared with a pointed message: this is what comes next.

The Fiscal Crisis Kast Inherited

The protests did not emerge in a vacuum. They are the street-level response to an austerity program that Kast argues he had no choice but to implement.

In his first annual address before Congress — a two-hour-plus speech delivered in Valparaíso — Kast declared that his government inherited a structural fiscal deficit of 3.6% of GDP, more than double the 1.6% committed to by the outgoing Boric administration, and characterized the situation as an economic emergency requiring urgent measures.

Since taking office, Kast has pledged to cut roughly $6 billion in public spending over 18 months in order to restore fiscal stability. As part of that plan, his government is forcing a nearly 3% budget cut across all ministries. No ministry is exempt. The cuts touch health, infrastructure, social programs — and education.

The austerity argument is straightforward in economic terms: Chile’s fiscal accounts deteriorated significantly under Boric, and without correction, borrowing costs rise and investment flees. Kast campaigned explicitly on fiscal discipline. He won in a landslide. The mandate, his government argues, is real.

What Protesters Are Fighting

Wednesday’s march was organized by the Confederation of Chilean Students and supported by a coalition of organizations including the national Teachers’ Union, secondary school student associations, and feminist groups. The demonstration targeted two specific measures: education budget cuts that protesters say would undermine access to public university education and student representation, and a sweeping legislative package that the government has branded its signature reform agenda.

The demonstrations are strikingly similar to recent protests in Buenos Aires over populist-libertarian Javier Milei’s controversial budget cuts in essential departments like university schools and public education.

Demonstrators also rallied against the government’s National Reconstruction bill — a sweeping package of measures aimed at reducing state spending, encouraging private investment, and boosting Chile’s broader economy. The project, known as the “mega-reform” bill, was approved by the Chamber of Deputies in late May and is now set to be debated in the Senate.

The opposition to the mega-reform is not confined to the streets. The measures have drawn criticism not only from opposition parties but also from some sectors within Kast’s own governing coalition — a sign that the political challenge to the austerity program runs deeper than a student movement.

“They want to silence us, but we are not going to stop,” said Magdalena Correa, a 21-year-old student at the march. “They’re taking away our resources and rights, and we have to fight back.”

Associated Press journalists observed at least a dozen arrests and several injuries during the unrest. Police and government officials had not yet issued official comment on the clashes by Wednesday evening.

Not the First Time

Wednesday’s clash was the most significant since Kast took office, but it was not the first. In late March, police fired water cannons at students gathering in central Santiago to protest Kast’s plans to limit free university access and tighten control over student loans. The pattern suggests a protest movement that is growing in scale and intensity as the government’s reform agenda advances through Congress.

Chile has a long history of student-led political mobilization. The 2011 student movement — which brought millions into the streets demanding free, quality public education — was the crucible that produced a generation of left-wing politicians, including Gabriel Boric himself. Kast’s government is acutely aware of that precedent.

The Regional Echo

The images from Santiago arrived in Latin America at a politically charged moment. Across the region, right-wing governments are discovering that electoral mandates do not insulate them from the social consequences of the policies those mandates enable.

In Colombia, protesters and opposition figures have already begun using Chile as a warning — arguing that a de la Espriella victory on June 21 would produce the same confrontations between austerity and the street that are now playing out in Santiago. In Santiago itself, some marchers carried signs referencing Colombia directly, warning that the Chilean experience would travel north if the Colombian right wins.

The argument cuts both ways. Kast’s government would counter that the fiscal emergency he inherited — a deficit double what his predecessor claimed — left no room for an alternative path, and that the short-term pain of austerity is the price of long-term stability. His supporters note that Boric’s government spent freely, left the books in disorder, and will not be present for the consequences.

What neither side disputes is that Chile’s new right-wing government, three months in, is already governing in a country where the social contract is being renegotiated in real time — and that the streets of Santiago are where that negotiation is happening first.

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