Chile: Cabinet reshuffled after failed constitutional referendum

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Chile's President Gabriel Boric

Photo: CHILE PRESIDENCY/ REUTERS

After the new constitution was rejected in a referendum in Chile, President Gabriel Boric reshuffled his cabinet.

Among other things, Interior Minister Izkia Siches has to vacate her post, as the government announced.

She had not been able to get the escalating violence in the south of the country under control.

Radical members of the indigenous Mapuche people are said to have repeatedly attacked companies and police officers there.

Boric transferred the Secretary General in the Presidential Office, Giorgio Jackson, to the Ministry for Social Development.

The confidante of the head of state was considered the ideological mastermind behind the failed draft constitution and had repeatedly clashed with members of Congress.

"We need new government coordination, we need to strengthen the coalition that supports us together, and above all we need to take care of the needs of the citizens," Boric said.

Chileans clearly rejected the new constitution in a referendum on Sunday.

The basic law supported by Boric's left-wing government would have guaranteed the right to housing, education and health, stipulated a 50 percent quota for women in all state organs and granted the indigenous communities the right to self-determination.

Apparently that went too far for many people in the conservative country.

czl/dpa