The president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, gives a fist bump to Giorgio Jackson, in January 2022. Esteban Felix (AP)
The Chilean Congress has saved the minister who is historically closest to President Gabriel Boric, the engineer Giorgio Jackson, in charge of the Social Development portfolio.
This Thursday, the Chamber of Deputies voted on a constitutional accusation against him presented by the far-right Republican Party, which sought his resignation and that he could not hold public office for five years.
Parliamentarians, however, gave the government a break.
With 76 votes against, 68 in favor and six abstentions, the initiative was dismissed.
"In the room, political arguments were put forward that, beyond certain epithets, I accept with humility and to consider some of the criticisms that can serve to improve our management," said Jackson, 35, who was a leader of the university movement. 2011 with Boric,
Jackson formally no longer belongs to La Moneda's first decision-making circle, the political committee.
After the defeat of the proposal for a new Constitution in the plebiscite on September 4, Boric removed him from the Ministry of the General Secretariat of Government, which handles relations with Parliament, precisely because of the problems he had in relations with congressmen from different sections.
It was the first major redesign of his Cabinet, where the president had to remove figures of immense political closeness from key ministries, such as Jackson, who went to the Ministry of Social Development.
But he continues to have influence with the president, a fact that the extreme opposition does not overlook.
As soon as the sessions resumed in 2023, the Republican Party of José Antonio Kast, which has 10 deputies and as many allies,
They accused him of "abuse of authority and power, reflected in a Minister of State who, due to his closeness to the President of the Republic and his apparent immobility, trespassed the limits of his own authority, violating the Political Constitution," the letter stated. of 150 pages where the reasons for seeking his dismissal were based, based on various controversial episodes in Jackson's portfolio, such as a subordinate who accused him of pressuring her to take certain types of definitions.
But, finally, the accusation of the Republican Party sought to take advantage of a political moment of weakness of the Government to attack a person close to the president who, for various reasons, does not enjoy the greatest sympathy, not even from his political allies of socialism.
“Our scale of values and principles around politics is not only far from the previous government, but I believe that compared to a generation that preceded us, which could be identified with the same range of political spectrum, such as the center-left and the left.
We are addressing the issues with less euphemism and more frankly”, Jackson assured in August about the moderate sectors that were part of the Concertación and that today are in the Government, in key ministries such as the Interior or the Treasury.
The unfortunate phrase increased tensions.
Jackson is also not forgiven for the fact that as an opposition deputy he has supported 11 of 14 constitutional accusations, some against the previous president, Sebastián Piñera.
What happened in November 2021 works against him especially, when a parliamentarian from his sector spoke for hours in the chamber to get Jackson to reach Congress and could support the constitutional accusation against the president, on a trip that Jackson even broadcast by social networks.
In today's result, the abstentions of four opposition deputies who decided not to square with the Republican Party, unlike the rest of their sector, were crucial.
For the Government, however, the complexities are not over.
Next week the Chamber of Deputies will review the constitutional accusation against the former Minister of Justice, Marcela Ríos, for the controversy of the 13 pardoned by President Boric on December 30.
That onslaught, however, is promoted by the entire opposition coalition Chile Vamos, from the traditional right.
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