chili on the go

The victory of Gabriel Boric in the Chilean elections has opened a hopeful compass but it has been Boric himself who has warned about the excess of expectations in the face of a panorama of great social and economic complexity, while the country prepares a new Constitution that must be approved at the polls.

Much of the political credibility of a leader who led student demonstrations a few years ago depended on the appointment of his new government.

His detractors had accused him of being an unreliable radical who at any moment could break with the moderate sectors that supported him in the December elections.

The presentation last Friday of his Executive has shown that the youngest president to arrive at La Moneda, as will happen next March 11 at 36 years old, has opted for balance,

His Government repeats the combination of elements that allowed him victory.

With an average age of 49 years, there are appointments of high symbolic value, doses of political pragmatism and clearly defined transversal lines, such as feminism.

In his team he has brought together 14 women and 10 men, and he includes eight independents, but also fellow travelers with whom Boric protested in the streets and forged his parliamentary career.

Among them are Camila Vallejo and Giorgio Jackson, as well as the charismatic Izkia Siches, a key figure in the second round of elections, who will be the first woman to hold the Ministry of the Interior.

The appointment with the greatest impact has been that of the current president of the Central Bank, the Social Democrat Mario Marcel, as Minister of Finance.

The choice of this respected economist,

Two names with a high symbolic load are the Minister of Defense, Maya Fernández, granddaughter of former President Salvador Allende, and Antonia Urrejola in the Foreign Ministry.

With Urrejola, former president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the next Chilean president makes clear the distance of his government from authoritarianism that plagues Latin America, including that of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, with whom the future minister has been very critical.

Boric did not live through the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet and has charged against the transition model for its inability to reduce the enormous social inequalities.

At the same time, it has been able to negotiate with the traditional parties, and it did so with the right by agreeing on a new Constitution, without shying away from approaching the votes of the center in order to defeat the extreme right of José Antonio Kast.

His new government thwarts any form of radical scaremongering and offers a stimulating mix of progressive politics and emotional ties to Chile's best democratic past.