He is young, 35 years old, which makes him one of the youngest leaders in the world. He was also just old enough to be a presidential candidate. Gabriel Boric, breaking with the centrist tradition of recent years, aspires to radically transform his country.
Dark jacket, white shirt without a tie, he promised Sunday, December 19 a whole series of reforms in health, education and pensions: so many sectors fully or partially privatized under the Pinochet dictatorship and which leave out the less well-off.
#BoricPresidentofChile @gabrielboric I would give the best of myself to live up to the trust you placed in me, I would not forget: justice, truth, respect pic.twitter.com/5UtOubJr8k
– Ulyss (@achabus) December 20, 2021
“Together, he said, we will make Chile a more just and worthy country. Our government will have its feet in the streets, decisions will not be taken within four walls but with the population“.
Heir to an ultra-liberal policy pursued until 1990, Chile has become one of the most unequal countries in the world. 1% of the population captures more than 25% of the wealth. Gabriel Boric wants to turn the page on neoliberalism, to establish a welfare state which, he says, “seems fairly obvious from Europe: guarantee that everyone has the same social rights, regardless of the money they have in their wallet”.
Will he have the means for his ambitions? It will be difficult, first on the political level: the parliament is very fragmented, no camp has a majority, not even its coalition which includes the Communist Party. He will have to negotiate a lot with the opposition. Economically, it will not be helped either: next year growth promises to be weak, still impacted by the coronavirus.
Gabriel Boric carries the hope of all Chileans who rose up massively against the government two years ago to demand a more just society. Those of the middle class in particular, who no longer accept having to go into debt to pay for their pensions, their drugs and their children’s education. He knows what he is talking about: ten years ago, when he was still on the benches of the law school in Santiago, before being elected deputy, he took the head of the Federation of Students and participated in the great movement for a reform of the education system.
A Chilean friend, who has lived in France for a long time, sent me this video. These are the streets of Santiago after the victory of Gabriel Boric !!!!! pic.twitter.com/iwRI79tMsF
– Guillaume Origoni (@Gorigoni) December 20, 2021
Faced with the unprecedented duel of this ballot, which opposed two candidates with diametrically opposed societal projects (the representative of the right, José Antonio Kast, is nostalgic for the Pinochet dictatorship), the Chileans mobilized massively: the participation exceeded the 55%, an all-time high since voting is no longer compulsory in 2012.
Gabriel Boric’s victory is obviously greeted by all the figures of the left, in Argentina, Peru, Cuba, Venezuela, but also by the presidents of the right and center-right. Former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (Workers’ Party, left), whom polls show as the winner of the presidential election in 2022 in a possible duel with far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, said “happy with a new victory of a democratic and progressive candidate in our Latin America, for the construction of a better future for all“.
Gabriel Boric, who has a drawing of a lighthouse lighting up a desert island tattooed on his arm, often recalls that he comes from the city of Punta Arenas, in southern Patagonia, in the Strait of Magellan, “where the world begins, where all the stories and the imagination come togetherHe will officially take office on March 11.