MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chile: Kast arrives at La Moneda with a 90-day plan focused on security, fiscal cuts and migration

Kast’s immediate test will be managing high expectations. A Cadem poll released in early March found that 57% of respondents believed Chile would do well under his administration

José Antonio Kast will be sworn in as Chile’s president on Wednesday with a pledge to lead an “emergency government” focused on security, the economy and migration control, as he seeks to turn his electoral mandate into early, visible action. His team has drafted a first 90-day roadmap combining administrative measures, regulatory changes and an initial batch of bills meant to show movement from the outset.

The programme, known as Challenge 90, lays out around 90 actions concentrated in areas including the interior, public security, justice, finance, economy, health, housing and labour. According to details reported by El País, the package includes roughly 40 regulatory changes and about 25 bills, among them proposals to criminalise irregular entry into the country, scrap property tax payments on a first home for people over 65, and make it easier to transfer patients from the public to the private health system under a health alert.

Kast’s immediate test will be managing high expectations. A Cadem poll released in early March found that 57% of respondents believed Chile would do well under his administration, while El País reported that 65% of Chileans said they felt optimistic about the country’s future. Kast himself has cautioned that the transition will not produce instant results. “It will be a complex year,” he said in late January, calling for “cooperation” and warning that excessive expectations could quickly turn into frustration.

On the fiscal front, each ministry has been instructed to implement a permanent 3% spending cut as part of a broader consolidation target promised during the campaign. Reports by Pulso and other Chilean outlets said the first phase aims to trim around US$3 billion in 2026 by reviewing service contracts, tightening absenteeism controls, limiting overlapping functions and freezing new studies and advisory work. The first measurable impact is expected to appear in the first-quarter public finance report.

The finance ministry, to be led by Jorge Quiroz, is also preparing a tax reform bill for April 1 that would gradually reduce the corporate tax rate from 27% to 23% over four years and include incentives for formal hiring. Quiroz is positioned as a central figure in Kast’s pro-business agenda, which is built around deregulation, tax cuts and fiscal discipline.

Security will be the other immediate priority. The plan includes tougher penalties for crimes linked to organised crime, separating gang leaders already in prison into high-security facilities, intervening in critical neighbourhoods and curbing so-called narco funerals. On migration, the incoming government wants stronger border enforcement, more police at sensitive crossings and sanctions tied to the transport, employment or housing of migrants with irregular status.

Its room for manoeuvre in Congress will be narrower. After November’s elections that the right made gains in Congress but still fell short of controlling it on its own, while the People’s Party emerged as a swing bloc in the lower house. That fragmentation may help advance parts of the economic and security agenda, but it could also dilute or slow down some of the administration’s harder-line proposals.