Kast's First Cabinet Reshuffle: Security and Communications Get New Leadership

Sixty-nine days into his presidency, José Antonio Kast made a decision he said he hadn't planned for. On a Tuesday in late May, he removed two cabinet ministers whose tenures had become liabilities: Trinidad Steinert, who led the Security Ministry, and Mara Sedini, the government's spokesperson. It was the fastest cabinet reshuffle since Chile's return to democracy in 1990, and it signaled something urgent: the initial design of his administration wasn't working.

Kast framed the move carefully. "I didn't expect this, and it wasn't what I had in mind for this stage," he told the assembled room, "but given the country's sense of urgency and the tasks Chile has entrusted to us, this adjustment is necessary." The word "adjustment" was deliberate—less dramatic than "purge," more measured than "crisis." But the numbers told a different story. His approval rating had fallen to 36 percent, with 58 percent disapproving. Sedini, the spokesperson tasked with selling the government's message, had become its worst-evaluated minister at just 24 percent approval. Steinert, responsible for security—the issue that had dominated Kast's campaign—sat at 36 percent, also among the lowest.

Steinert's departure was the more consequential. She had inherited one of the government's most fraught portfolios: restoring order in a country where organized crime and drug trafficking had metastasized over years without serious resistance. But her tenure had been marked by missteps that accumulated into a crisis of confidence. She had struggled to articulate a coherent security plan, stumbled through congressional presentations on security measures, failed in an attempt to invoke the State Security Law after an assault on the Science Minister, and had become entangled in a controversy over her role in the detention of an autonomist community leader in Temucuicui. An interpellation was coming. Worse, the Comptroller General's office was investigating her involvement in the removal of a senior PDI official—a decision that could prove deeply damaging when results were announced that very Wednesday.

Sedini's problems were different but equally corrosive. She had been unable to communicate the government's message with clarity. She tangled with opposition figures, and her public appearances generated criticism; she never looked comfortable in the role. Together, the two ministers had become symbols of a government that had promised emergency, order, and rapid execution but delivered confusion and drift.

The reshuffle also revealed a strategic shift. Claudio Alvarado, the Interior Minister, would now also serve as government spokesperson—a consolidation that suggested Kast wanted to centralize political control rather than distribute it. Louis de Grange, already Transport Minister, would add Public Works to his portfolio. Martín Arrau, departing Public Works, would take over Security. The move toward "biministers"—officials holding two portfolios—reflected not efficiency but a tightening of the circle around the president. Arrau's appointment to Security seemed less about expertise in public safety and more about presidential trust and political control.

In the Montt-Varas salon, Kast offered emotional farewells. He thanked Steinert for taking on "one of the most complex and urgent challenges our nation faces," and spoke of the need to restore tranquility to families and state authority against organized crime. Both departing ministers wept. The ceremony carried the weight of a difficult but necessary decision—or at least, that was the intended message. Kast spoke of hard choices, of speaking truth even when it brought bad news, of the need to "put the house in order" so investors would return confidence to Chile. "With order and serious work, things will improve," he said. "Results aren't immediate. There are no magic solutions."

The opposition in Congress was less forgiving. Socialist senator Juan Luis Castro saw only "lack of capacity, lack of message, lack of expertise." PPD senator Raúl Soto called it "two months of disastrous government—improvisation, sloppiness, lack of plan and strategy." Even within the ruling coalition, there were careful notes. RN senator María José Gatica expressed hope that those assuming "high political and technical relevance" positions would have the necessary capabilities. The government had a state address scheduled for June 1 and a meeting at the presidential residence in Viña del Mar on Friday to reset the narrative. The reshuffle was meant to buy time and credibility. Whether it would work remained an open question.