Gabriel Boric assumes the presidency of Chile with the promise of a turn in his model

Gabriel Boric is sworn in this Friday as president of Chile with the promise of turning that country around, which was a successful neoliberal laboratory, to promote a welfare state with an ecological, feminist conscience and capable of reducing the inequalities that have fed up its society.

The former student leader, who is yet to graduate in Law at the University of Chile and a deputy since 2014, will become the youngest president in the history of Chile at 36 years old.

He will lead a country that closes a cycle of traditional politics, knocked out after the social revolt of 2019 and, later, the economic crisis caused by the pandemic.

Boric intends to start a path towards a welfare state in the style of European social democracy, to give a change of direction and keep his word: to turn into “Tomb” from neoliberalism to Chile, where 1% of the population owns 26% of the wealth.

“This is a government that comes to power in a very fragmented political climate, that does not have a parliamentary majority and, therefore, does not have the possibility of making very radical reforms in the short term.”, Claudia Heiss, head of the Political Science career at the University of Chile, told AFP.

However, “there is also this optimism that comes from the constituent process and an impulse to overcome neoliberalism that I think is seen today with less fear by even conservative sectors, because there is a kind of anti-neoliberal sentiment in the world,” he added. the academic.

The leftist takes office with a credibility crisis in politics, a 22.5% cut in public spending, an estimated slowdown in the economy for this year, a large irregular migration and an unresolved historical land conflict between the State and the Mapuche people. .

The change of command of the outgoing conservative president Sebastián Piñera (2010-2014; 2018-2022) will be in Congress, located in the port of Valparaíso, 150 km from Santiago.

More than twenty international guests will arrive there, including President Alberto Fernández of Argentina, Pedro Castillo of Peru, King Felipe VI of Spain and the writers Gioconda Belli of Nicaragua, as well as the Chilean ‘best seller’ Isabel Allende, who will be part of the delegation from the United States, where he has lived for more than 30 years.

social demand

It is a government that will have to respond to social demands for better health, education and retirement, and reduce social inequality, demands that arose in the social outbreak of October 2019 that hit this country considered one of the most stable in the region. .

“Boric has promised dialogue to overcome these problems and it remains to be seen if this predisposition to dialogue translates into citizens not exhausting themselves again waiting for solutions”, Rodrigo Espinoza, an academic at the Diego Portales University, explained to AFP.

Another challenge will be to gather support for the final part of the constitutional process that this year must call a plebiscite to approve or reject a new constitution that replaces the current Magna Carta, inherited from the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990).

generational change

The young president who promised a government “feminist” appointed in 14 of the 24 ministries, women of the most varied professions, profiles and ages, with an average age of 42 years, marking a generational change in politics.

He summoned two former student leaders with whom he marched in 2011 for free and quality education and with whom he shared a seat in Congress: Camila Vallejos (33), his next government spokeswoman, and Giorgio Jackson (35), the minister to in charge of relations with Congress.

There will also be six ministers who were born and raised in exile from the Pinochet dictatorship, including Maya Fernández, future Defense Minister and granddaughter of former socialist president Salvador Allende.

This new team in power will have to govern with a split Parliament and a minority of the new official alliance made up of the Broad Front and the Communist Party, as well as possible support from the Socialist Party.

But it will not be enough for him to obtain a minimum majority in the Legislature that supports his proposals, such as an ambitious tax reform that collects 5% of GDP to finance them.

“He will face a hostile Congress.” argues Espinoza, who indicates that his “big challenge” be “Install a dialogue to overcome legislative barriers” so that I have “the collection capacity to be able to sustain a Welfare State”.

Likewise, it will collide with distrust in the sectors of the radical right and left as to whether it will be able to carry out the social changes that it promises.