The Decline of Democrats and Amarillos: The Dissolution of Parties That Claimed to Be ‘Centrist’, Whose Leaders Ended Up in Kast’s Cabinet

Original article: El ocaso de Amarillos y Demócratas: la disolución de partidos que dijeron ser ‘centro’, cuyos líderes terminaron en el Gabinete de Kast

Democrats and Amarillos Officially Dissolved by Servel

From the «Crossing of the Rubicon» to Kast’s Cabinet: The Ironic End of the Parties That Claimed to Be «Centrist»

According to a report published by El Dínamo on Friday, following a five-year cycle marked by constitutional processes, the Electoral Service (Servel) announced the dissolution of the Democrats and Amarillos parties for failing to meet the minimum voting thresholds in the 2025 parliamentary elections, as outlined in Law No. 18.603. According to the report, both parties, which rose as significant hopes for a politically orphaned center after the fall of the Concertación, confirmed their definitive closure with emotional letters to their members, acknowledging the failure of their legal adventure.

Founded in reaction to the «maximalism» of the Constitutional Convention, Democrats and Amarillos experienced their golden era capitalizing on the victory of the Rejection in the September 2022 plebiscite, the publication details. However, electoral results eventually contradicted their supposed representativeness. In the 2024 municipal elections, according to Servel data gathered by El Dínamo, Amarillos managed only 71,156 votes (0.17% of the national total) and Democrats received 347,600 votes (0.82%), failing to secure any mayoral positions. In the 2025 parliamentary elections, the setback was definitive: Andrés Jouannet, president of Amarillos, lost his seat with just 12,618 votes in La Araucanía, while Democrats were left with minimal representation.

In a political irony that has not gone unnoticed and is reported by El Dínamo, the two main leaders of these political entities—Ximena Rincón (Democrats) and Andrés Jouannet (Amarillos)—ended up joining the cabinet of right-wing President José Antonio Kast. Rincón was appointed Minister of Energy, while Jouannet will take on the role of Undersecretary of Security amidst controversies.

«From now on, every Amarillos member becomes a citizen with complete independence of thought,» stated the party led by Jouannet in its farewell communiqué quoted by El Dínamo, while the Democrats adopted a hopeful tone: «This is not goodbye; the form may change, but the substance remains fully valid.» Nevertheless, the dissolution marks the end of a political project that, born to moderate extremes, finds itself ultimately absorbed by the government of the sector it promised to contain.