Irina Karamanos, the feminist leader and partner of Gabriel Boric who promises to reformulate the role of the first lady in Chile

He speaks six languages. She is the granddaughter of German and Greek immigrants. She is a recognized feminist leader. And she, at just 32 years old, will become the youngest first lady in the recent history of Chile.

Is about Irina Sabine Karamanos Adrianthe couple of Gabriel Boricwho will assume the presidency of this South American country on March 11.

They began their relationship in 2019, the year of the massive protests and the social outburst that completely changed the Chilean political landscape, opening the way to the drafting of a new Constitution and an important renewal of leadership.

Two years later, Karamanos was key for the young deputy and former student leader to make the decision to run for president.

After Boric’s resounding triumph, Karamanos announced that he would assume the role of first lady with the commitment to “reformulate” it, despite the fact that at first he had been reluctant to the idea.

“We must give a different and more contemporary twist to this role, depersonalize it, and this will also mean changing the relationship with power and the way we see the relationship between power and women who do politics,” explained Karamanos.

The decision, however, sparked a wave of criticism from the Chilean feminist worldof which she is also a part.

Some leaders described the decision as wrong, arguing that she will assume a “deeply sexist” and “anachronistic” position.

She, however, did not back down. And in a matter of days she will be entering the Palacio de La Moneda hand in hand with the person who will be the Chilean president for the next four years.

But who is Irina Karamanos and what role is she expected to play in the Boric administration?

Granddaughter of Greek and German immigrants

Irina Karamanos was born in the city of Santiago in 1989, in a family with Greek and German ancestry.

His paternal grandparents came to Chile to work from Greece in the manufacture of gloves and leather shoes in the saltpeter fields.

His father, Jorge Karamanos Elefteriau, was a normalist teacher, an active member of the Hellenic community of Santiago and a renowned chess player. He died of cancer when Irina was only 8 years old.

His maternal grandparents, meanwhile, were Germans living in Uruguay.

His mother, Sabine Alice Inés Adrian Gierke, was born there, who later went to live in Chile, where she worked as a professor at the Goethe Institut, a German public organization that promotes knowledge of the German language and its culture in the world.

Perhaps this variety of nationalities among his ancestors is what motivated Karamanos to learn so many languages: Spanish, German, English, basic Indonesian and Greek.

And now he’s studying kawesqarthe language of a native people of the southern zone of Chile and which is spoken by a single person who does not belong to this community: the ethnolinguist Óscar Aguilera.

As Karamanos explained in an interview with Revista Ya, from El Mercurio, his interest in learning this language has to do with the fact that, in his opinion, Chileans have a “poor relationship with indigenous communities and peoples.”

The Greek, meanwhile, studied it when he decided to go look for relatives he did not know on an island in Greece.

“And I found them. I completed my grandfather’s story with them, we wrote a family tree in the kitchen of one of the relatives there, it was incredible,” said the feminist leader in Ya Magazine.

In accordance with Manola Perezfriend and fellow activist of Karamanos, for her her family history is “very important”.

“To know herself she had to reconstruct what had happened with her father. For her, it has a sense not only biographical but also of soaking up experience, ”she tells BBC Mundo.

His career and militancy

Karamanos received his basic and secondary education at the Colegio Alemán de Santiago, a private educational establishment located in a wealthy commune in the Chilean capital, Las Condes.

After spending a year studying Visual Arts, in 2009 he decided to leave Chile for Germany, where he studied Political Science, Education and Anthropology at the University of Heidelberg.

He also has a diploma in Linguistic Diversity from the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

To cover her expenses, the then student worked as a waitress.

One of his favorite hobbies is drawing. He does serigraphy and portrays the human figure.

“For her, art is very important. At Christmas she always gives handmade things, be it drawings or clay figurines. That speaks of her aesthetic sense and her warmth, ”says Manola Pérez.

His bond with wide front —the political bloc to which Boric belongs and which challenged the power of the two traditional Chilean center-left and center-right political forces—, occurred upon his return to Chile in 2014.

Little by little, she built a solid career as a progressive militant: not only was she one of the founders of the Autonomist Movement —which later became Social Convergence, the party in which Boric is also a member— but she also established herself as an important feminist leader.

His work focused on party bases but also on strengthening ties with other Latin American and European groups. She has openly said that she is very politically active.

“She is a very important feminist leader, she has a key role in the party’s feminist front, she has helped a lot in the growth of new militants,” she tells BBC Mundo Maria Fernanda Canalswho has worked with her on the feminist front since 2016.

According to those close to her, when it comes to politics, “Iri” —as her friends call her— has a “breakthrough” profile because “she does not take structures for granted, she always seeks to improve them.”

“But he is a person who, within that rupture, seeks consensus. He knows how to listen and analyze different positions”, says Manola Pérez.

How did you meet Gabriel Boric?

It is in this partisan space that Karamanos met Gabriel Boric. Although at first they maintained a friendly relationship, after a while they fell in love.

“We were friends for a few years and then we fell in love and found ourselves more complicit as life partners,” Karamanos told Revista Ya.

The deputy, fellow activist and friend of the next president of Chile, Gonzalo Winterassures BBC Mundo that she was very important for Boric to make the decision to be a candidate.

But the task was not easy because the then parliamentarian had to gather 25,000 new militanciesin record time to make his party official at the national level and, thus, his candidacy.

At that time, there were Chilean politicians who joked about the possibility that the Front Ampist leader would achieve his goal.

“Let them face that they couldn’t get the signatures because the people don’t want them,” said congresswoman Pamela Jiles.

But the doubts were not only in the external political spheres to Boric but also in the internal ones, even in the environment closest to the next president.

Karamanos, however, never let his guard down.

“She was key in the organizational part of the signing meeting and in insisting that it was possible. I myself thought it was not possible,” recalls Winter.

After reaching the goal, the anthropologist continued with an important job in the campaign, although always with a secondary role, away from the cameras and public scrutiny.

Among other things, he coordinated the launch and closing ceremonies, the candidate’s trips and his speeches, and was concerned with organizing the grassroots militancy.

But when Gabriel Boric went to the second round, the name of Irina Karamanos began to become known.

The first time he appeared in public was on the night of November 21, when the former student leader managed to obtain the second majority of votes after the right-wing candidate, José Antonio Kast.

Karamanos joined him on stage as he gave his speech.

Then, he gave a memorable interview on Don Francisco’s “Las Caras de La Moneda” program, where both declassified some details of their relationship.

Among other things, they said that in private they are called “chofa” and “chofo”, a diminutive that comes from artichoke (of which both are fans).

As the brother of the next Chilean president tells BBC Mundo, Simon Boricshe is today a key piece for the enormous challenge that her brother will face as of March 11.

“She is a very kind, cheerful, hard-working woman and is always available to help. At some point I was worried in the campaign and she talked to me; she is a very noble person,” she says.

Regarding the family relationship, she adds: “She talks a lot with my parents, she is very close and daily; They are very much in love with Gabriel”.

The couple will now live in a heritage house in Barrio Yungay, a multicultural sector of the capital Santiago.

What role will it play?

Given her experience as a feminist and militant leader, in the political world that surrounds Gabriel Boric, Irina Karamanos is much more than her partner.

“In (the party) Social Convergence she is not the First Lady. She has a very active militant life in spaces where Gabriel is not part of everyday life, such as in the Santiago communal or the feminist front”, explains Gonzalo Winter.

“The Convergence militancy has a vision of it completely independent of their relationshipAdd.

In this way, many hope that it will play a substantial role in the next government. And that, by the way, he fulfills his promise to “reformulate” the controversial position that he will assume.

It is a task that, according to those who know her, she takes on with “great responsibility” and caution.

“The other day I told him: ‘I find what you are assuming very strong. I’m the same age as you and I don’t see myself in something like that, with so much weight,’” says María Fernanda Canales.

“She told me that she is calm and that it is a position that she will take with great responsibility.” (I)