The charismatic, bearded millennial leader was a sensation for the left. He galvanized young voters with the promise of radical comprehensive reform: social justice, affordable housing, free public transportation, and minority rights. He was elected with a large number of votes and appointed a record number of women to his cabinet.
That leader was not the elected mayor of New York City, Zahran MamdaniBut the young Chilean president Gabriel Borek.
When he was elected four years ago, aged 35, driven by a wave of social unrest, Many hailed him as a symbol of a new kind of progressive politics in Latin America It focused on economic redistribution, while defending human rights and a clear break with the authoritarian left in the region.
As a wave of leftist leaders swept elections across the region, Buric’s tattooed forearms appeared on the cover of Time magazine, and his “Nirvana” T-shirt, poetic quotes and frank statements about his mental health heralded generational renewal. “The new face of the left in Latin America”According to El Pais newspaper.
Now, toward the end of his term, much of that enthusiasm has subsided. Chile is preparing to hold the first round of national elections on Sunday The right-wing candidate is the most likely to win an early second round The shift to the left across South America appears to be going in the opposite direction.
The President of Chile can run for a second term, but not consecutively, and another leftist president, a candidate of the Communist Party, can run for a second term, but not consecutively. Janet JaraShe is running for president, although opinion polls indicate that she may be defeated in the second round by the conservative candidate. Jose Antonio Castwho campaigned on a tough-on-crime platform and is a vocal critic of Buric.
Burić’s popularity declined sharply shortly after he took officeReflecting initial mistakes and concerns about security and the economy. Its approval rating has not recovered significantly and has stabilized at about 30 percent.
The candidate’s radical vision collided with the reality of the government and the emergence of new and urgent challenges, forcing Buric to reduce his ambitions, prioritize reconciliation, and assume the role of a more realistic, although still influential, leader.
“There are things we cannot do,” he added. Camila Vallejo37, is the minister’s spokesman and a prominent figure among Buric’s generation of leaders. “We had to adapt,” he added in an interview at La Moneda, Chile’s presidential palace. “But we haven’t changed direction.”
When Buric, who declined to be interviewed for this article, took office in 2022, he inherited a country in crisis, rocked by deadly protests and the coronavirus pandemic, and facing a rise in organized crime and migration, all of which forced him to reorient his agenda.
At the head of a minority government. Buric had to negotiate with other parties in CongressThe rejection of the new constitution at the ballot box destroyed many of his plans.
However, Buric has emerged as one of the few left-wing leaders in Latin America who has remained resolute in his defense of human rights. In his condemnation of socialist dictatorships, such as Nicaragua.
Although he failed to turn Chile into a “neoliberal graveyard,” as he promised in 2021, his government has adopted some important social measures. He raised the minimum wage, made pensions more generous, made public health care free for the poorest Chileans, and reduced the workweek from 45 to 40 hours.
“What the government did was go as far as it could based on the rules of the game,” he said. Miguel Crespia close friend of Boric’s, and until recently, his chief of staff. “The distance between utopia and being a government will always be wide.”
Patricio FernandezThe journalist, who is also a friend of Buric, said that in the end his government was not transformed into a transformative government and “at the very least revolutionary, but a government of normalization.”
From the living room of his home in Santiago, where, he said, Buric used to sleep on a leather sofa when talks lasted late into the night, Fernandez said the government was “completely different from what they themselves imagined.”
“They faced reality,” he said.
Everything happened very quickly.
Boric rose to fame as a troubling student leader during a 2011 grassroots movement seeking free education. While in college, he was elected to Chile’s Congress, where his first appearance, without a tie, caused a stir.
In 2019, protests spread across Chile, demanding improved living standards and a radical change in the market economy model in a rich but highly unequal country. One of the main goals was to replace the Chilean Constitution, which had been adopted under the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.
The unrest created the ideal conditions for the nomination of Buric, a sympathetic and eloquent spokesman rooted in the country’s social movements.
“The people of Chile are the heroes of this process. We would not be here without your mobilization.”In his inaugural address from La Moneda, Buric said his ministers, many of them in their early 30s, were presented to the public like rock stars.
The beginning of Buric’s government was marked by a series of symbolic acts, such as the appointment of the first female Minister of the Interior, Izkiah Sisz35 years old, and the appointment of Maya Fernandez Allende, the granddaughter of former Marxist President of Chile, Salvador Allende, as Minister of Defense.
But it was also marked by numerous mistakes that the opposition blamed on inexperience.
Three days after Boric took office, Séchés traveled to an area in southern Chile where indigenous Mapuche people disputed land rights; He expressed his hope to enter into dialogue with local leaders. But it had to be evacuated after gunfire broke out.
Voters also flatly rejected the referendum on adopting the new constitution, which Buric supported and whose text was drafted by an elected and largely left-wing constitutional conference.
The proposed text would have enshrined a series of social rights and systemic reforms, including gender equality in public institutions, the abolition of Chile’s private pension model, and the recognition of animals.
He said: “The country threw a bucket of cold water at them, with everything and the bucket.” Lucia Dammertsociologist and Burić’s first chief of staff.
He added: “There was an illusion that constitutional change could lay certain foundations for a much deeper change in society.” “to fail”.
The defeat of the constitutional referendum marked what Dammert described as A 90 degree coup in Buric’s presidency. In a cabinet reshuffle, some younger and less experienced ministers were replaced by more senior and traditional figures, such as members of the socialist or social democratic camp.
“This is the place the Social Democratic cavalry had to save.”Ricardo Solari (71 years old), a former minister and an influential figure in the Socialist Party, said. He said that Buric’s generation “broke with our political traditions that they valued, but they had to resort to them.”
Alvaro Elizalde, 56, a socialist who currently serves as interior minister, said in an interview that forming the government coalition allowed them to expand affordable housing, harness and redistribute income from mining companies in the mineral-rich country and fight crime.
Burić, who had previously criticized the National Police’s use of force, strongly supported the administration, increasing the budget and creating a Ministry of Public Security.
His actions have drawn criticism from both the right and the left.
Kast considered his actions inadequate and stated so Buric “promises us hope and gives us insecurity.” In a speech this week, he accused the president of presiding over a country “held captive by incompetence, ideology and fear.”
Some members of the left accused him of treason, especially after he agreed to the continued deployment of the army in an attempt to address the conflict with the Mapuche in southern Chile, which he promised to stop.
“It was a military action that not even a right-wing government had sought to do in the region,” said Gabriel Aldea, 37, a computer programmer in Santiago, who voted for Buric. “It’s very disappointing.”
Aldea said he was upset that the government was reducing its scope.
“The government program was a complete reestablishment,” Aldea said. “What it sought was to end the neoliberal capitalist system in the West. It sought to be a social experiment. What they ended up doing was handing over everything.”
But the government urged Chileans to judge her by her achievements rather than focusing on what officials described as unrealistic expectations.
“The question of the expectations of governments in power is always an issue,” Vallejo said.
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