“A new kind of leftist leader”

The president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, is the cover of American magazine Time September, which includes a report entitled “El Presidente millennial of Chile is a new type of leftist leader.”

The media highlights that he is the youngest president in Chilean history and commands his country at a transcendental moment, facing the plebiscite on September 4 to approve or reject a new Constitution.

The media makes a profile of the president, who in the note stands out in the past as a “radical student leader” and is currently moving away from that image of “agitator”, due to his position.

Although he became famous in Chile when he was 20 years old as a wild-haired radical student leader, today’s Boric is not an agitator, even if some want him to be.

Time He also highlights his visibility during the social unrest of October 2019 and says that “he owes his presidency to that agitation.”

“President millennial is leading his country through a kind of mid-life crisis,” the magazine says, to which the president replies, “It’s a lot of responsibility, sure… But I wake up every morning excited to continue working on this”.

Plebiscite

Regarding the constitutional proposal that his country is going through, the president, according to the publication, says that it “addresses really important issues not only for Chile, but for the world. It has a vision of harmony between development and care for the environment. environment, which was really foreign to the constitutions of the 20th century. It incorporates a feminist perspective, which is fundamental. And it establishes some tremendously important things, towards which we have to move progressively: the rights of workers, the diffusion of opportunities and resources outside from Santiago”.

Boric also accepts that some parts of the text need more clarity before they become law: “There are always things that could be improved, and we are having that debate,” he told the magazine. “But it is a big step forward for Chile,” he added.

The left in the region

The magazine also highlights that “Boric’s rise is part of a regional turn to the left” in the region, after the triumph of this line in “the six largest economies in Latin America” ​​and emphasizing that Brazil can join, after October elections.

Asked whether or not he was a socialist, Boric stated that his government “aspires to a form of organization that goes beyond capitalism” and said that he believes “in the liberal socialist tradition but not in a state that controls everything like the socialism of the 20th century.” XX, which failed.

Although he accepted his closeness to the governments of Colombian President Gustavo Petro and Brazilian candidate Lula da Silva, he was critical of Nicaraguan Daniel Ortega: “I am very critical of the authoritarian tendencies on the continental left, and that has cost me a lot of criticism.”

pension and security funds, the Mapuche conflict, the mining multinationals and the extractive sector, even their style and musical tastes were discussed in the interview

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