Boric promises to defend human rights “everywhere” and redistribute wealth

The new president of Chile, Gabriel Boricsaid this Friday that his Government will promote “forever” and “everywhere” respect for human rights “regardless of the color of the government that violates them.”

In his first speech as president on a balcony of the La Moneda presidential palace, the former student leader thus made a clear reference to the regimes of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaraguawhom he has criticized on several occasions since the presidential race began.

Boric, who at 36 is the youngest president in Chilean history, also asked his Latin American peers to promote regional integration and promised that Chile will don “efforts so that the voice of the South can once again be heard firmly in a changing world”.

“We will practice political autonomy in the international arena without subordinating ourselves to any power”, assured before thousands of supporters, that at some point during the speech they interrupted him with the cry of “Boric, friend, the people are with you!”

Labored in student struggles and critical of the neoliberal model installed during the military dictatorship, Boric said that it is necessary “redistribute” the wealth in Chile, one of the most unequal countries in the region and where thousands of people came out en masse to demonstrate in 2019 in favor of a fairer model.

“When wealth is concentrated only in a few, peace is very difficult”, He stated in an emotional speech.

Aware that it will not be easy for him to carry out his broad agenda of reforms with a very fragmented Parliament, the former deputy for the southern Magallanes said that his government “it is not exhausted in its adherents” and that it will try to find transversal agreements.

“We have to embrace each other as a society, love each other again, smile again (…) let this be the government of the people and you feel it as your government (…) and for that we are going to need all of us, government and opposition , entrepreneurs and social movements”, pointed.

Boric, who in his speech alluded to the ousted Salvador Allende, is the first president who is not part of the two centrist blocs that have governed the country since the return to democracy in 1990.

She will also lead the first cabinet with more women than men on the continent and has promised that the feminist struggle will be a fundamental axis of her government.