The announcement of a cabinet made up of 14 women and 10 men comes to break with the political tradition in Chile, said the elected president, Gabriel Boric, 36, in dialogue with the BBC news portal. “We represent fresh air, youth, novelty, but with an awareness of the historical chain of processes. We also represent that the status quo or conservatism is the worst thing that can come to Chile at the moment”, he pointed.
Boric, spoke this week with Britain’s state broadcaster on his first interview with an international media after the elections in which he defeated the far-right candidate José Antonio Kast. The president-elect spoke about his new cabinet and about his closeness and distances with some progressive governments in the region. “We represent the strength of an era“, he pointed.
Boric acknowledged that during her first term, former socialist president Michelle Bachelet “made an effort to maintain a joint cabinet and the forces of conservatism quickly sawed it through.” That is why he added: “I don’t want to present ourselves as pioneers, but as we are picking up a legacy that goes far beyond us”.
The president-elect also referred to his expectations for your government and highlighted the importance of decentralization. “I am from Magellan, born and raised on the shores of the Strait and for as long as I can remember I have been hearing the word decentralization without having had major effects on daily life of people. And where the decisions end up being taken by an elite from Santiago, from the upper class, above the realities that are lived in the communes, in the neighborhoods” he maintained. “I hope that at the end of our mandate we will have a decentralized Chile, that in the neighborhoods, in the communes, in the regions, they can decide their future more than from La Moneda or the upper neighborhood of Santiago,” he added.
The elected president was also consulted if he recognizes himself in any of the rulers of the Latin American left. “It gives me a lot of hope and I hope to have a job side by side with Lucho Arce in Bolivia, if Lula wins the elections in Brazil with Lula, the experience of Gustavo Petro is consolidated in Colombia. I think that a tremendously interesting axis can be put together there”, he affirmed. Although he distanced himself from two leftist governments. “I understand that the question is closely related to Venezuela Y Nicaragua. In the case of Nicaragua I cannot find anything there, and in the case of Venezuela it is an experience that has rather failed and the main demonstration of its failure is the six million Venezuelans in diaspora”, he specified.
Regarding his goal as governor, Boric stated: “Every organization requires some kind of order. I would say that the problem in Chile today is that this order does not exist. The social contract has been broken. And from my point of view by the elites. And, therefore, in order to recover order, new forms are required and not repeat the same of the past.”
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