Though there is a wide literature on the crisis of representation in Latin America, less is known about the political processes that precede the aforementioned crisis - which translates into the feeling of malaise with democratic representation. Here we operationalize malaise as a combination of political disaffection, distrust with political institutions and government disapproval. We conclude that the malaise with democracy is not a systematic outcome of either the quality of democracy or the human development index. Rather, it is associated to inequality. At the individual level, malaise is more intense among the youth and in the lower-income segments of the population.