Boric insists that there are “tremendous challenges” in Chile, expects to announce cabinet in a month

Chilean President-elect Gabriel Boric said he was aware of the “tremendous challenges” that his government will face, reaffirmed that he will conduct reforms “step by step” to safeguard the economy and that he hopes to announce to his cabinet within a month.

Elected in a day of historic participation with a triumph widely celebrated by the Chilean and Latin American left, Boric met on Monday afternoon at the La Moneda palace with President Sebastián Piñera, whom he will succeed in office as of March 11 .

“Today we are more aware of the tremendous challenges that we are going to have to address,” said Boric at the end of a meeting to coordinate the transfer of power, insisting that his future government will have “a commitment to fiscal convergence.”

“This is something that we discussed with our economic academic advisory team, it is something that I maintain, it was not a merely electoral strategy, but rather a conviction. Chile needs to have clear accounts, an orderly macroeconomy, because or if not, the reforms that can be carried out end up going backwards, ”he insisted.

Asked about the names he is considering for his future cabinet, Boric indicated that Piñera had appointed his work team about a month after his election and that he hoped “not to exceed that deadline.”

“We do not have names at this time that I can make public. We will do everything possible to ensure that the processes are quick, ”said the president-elect.

Thousands of people celebrated in the street until early Monday the resounding victory of Boric, 35, who will become the youngest elected president in the country’s history. He will turn 36 in February.

The former student leader who starred in a wave of youth protests a decade ago and leads a coalition of left-wing parties that has pledged to reform the Chilean economic model firmly defeated conservative rival José Antonio Kast, who quickly acknowledged his defeat with the first official counts.

The campaign that preceded the elections was the most polarized in the world’s largest copper producer in three decades, since the fall of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship, but finally the legislator backed by an alliance that includes the Communist Party prevailed with 55.85 % of votes.

The victory marked another breakthrough for the Latin American left and reinforced this trend in the region, where poverty fueled by the coronavirus pandemic has made voters lean towards leaders who promote larger states and more social spending.

“I have a lot of faith in youth”

The rise of Boric – and the polarization of the campaign – had shaken markets in Chile and raised alerts in the vital mining industry, concerned by rhetoric about ending the neoliberal economic model of strong openness to international markets, driving a rise in taxes and toughen environmental regulation.

In his victory speech on Sunday, he referred to indigenous rights, gender equality and protection of the environment, also promising to expand social rights, but to do so with “fiscal responsibility.”

It did target, however, mining projects that threaten the environment.

Markets fell Monday on the first day after the ballot and Boric said they were analyzing such movements.