Twenty days after Sebastián Piñera hands over the presidential sash to Gabriel Boric, the teams of both administrations will prepare to begin this Monday the change of command that will take place officially in the second week of March, a process that from the return to democracy has always been ordered.
The meetings will be inaugurated by the outgoing Minister of the Interior, Rodrigo Delgado, and the independent doctor Izkia Siches, the first woman in Chilean history to occupy the powerful portfolio, which is in charge of coordinating the cabinet and ensuring public safety.
The migration crisis on the northern border with Bolivia or the militarization of the south, where there is a territorial conflict between Mapuche indigenous people and large forestry companies, are some of the issues that both authorities will deal with.
“It should be an orderly process as it has always been in Chile, despite the fact that the outgoing government is ideologically very distant from the incoming one,” he told Eph Mauricio Morales, from the University of Talca.
On Tuesday it will be the turn of another portfolio of the so-called “political committee”, the hard core of the cabinet: Treasury. The outgoing minister, Rodrigo Cerda, and his successor, the former president of the Central Bank Mario Marcel, will foreseeably address the inflationary spiral in which the country is involved, as well as the economic reactivation after the pandemic.
“Everything seems to indicate that the transfer of power will be smooth. From an institutional perspective, this is quite positive for the beginning of a stage that will be marked by the changes that the constitutional convention and the executive power will articulate,” he said. to Efe Jaime Abedrapo, from the San Sebastian University.
Throughout the week and until the inauguration on March 11, the authorities of the other 22 ministries will meet, in which for the first time in history there will be a majority of women (14 against 10 men) and a mixture of young politicians and established figures of the center left.
“This transfer of power will have a lot of symbolism, since it is not only the alternation in power, but it is perceived as the emergence of a new political elite,” said Abedrapo.
“It is essential that the incoming minister knows the financial and legislative situation of each ministry in order to plan his management. There may be projects in Congress sent by the outgoing government in which the incoming government does not agree,” added Morales.
Boric, 36, will become the youngest president in Chilean history and the first not to be part of the two traditional centrist blocs that have led the country since the end of the dictatorship in 1990.
Defender of the constituent process in which the country is immersed and staunch critic of the neoliberal model installed during the military regime, the still deputy for the southern region of Magallanes wants to expand the role of the State towards a welfare model similar to that of Europe.
Other prominent figures in the future cabinet are the former president of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) Antonia Urrejola in the Foreign Ministry, the deputy Giorgio Jackson for relations with Parliament or the former student leader and communist deputy Camila Vallego in the spokesperson.
Boric, who this week announced that he will install the presidential residence in a large house in a central neighborhood of Santiago, is spending a few days on vacation in the Juan Fernández archipelago preparing the inauguration, which is expected to be attended by leaders from all over the continent.
