36 year-old Gabriel Boric has been sworn in as Chile’s youngest-ever President.
Gabriel Boric is a former student activist and has taken the mantle of leadership as the South American nation is undergoing an important political and social transition.
At the Congress building in the port city of Valparaiso, Boric took the Presidential sash from outgoing billionaire President, Sebastian Pinera.
According to him: “Before the Chilean people, I make my pledge,”
Boric is taking over a country seeking change following mass 2019 protests, which he supported, against deep-rooted inequality in income, healthcare, education and pensions.
His administration will oversee a referendum on a new Chilean constitution, which an elected, constituent assembly is currently rewriting to replace the Magna Carta put in place by Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship.
According to Al Jazeera’s Latin America editor Lucia Newman: ” this signifies a historic shift, a real sign of the changing times in this country,”.
“[Boric] is now heading a feminist, environmentalist government that’s going to try to bring about historic social change, led by a cabinet that is mostly full of young people who don’t have much experience in government, but that certainly have big plans for this country,” Newman said.
Pinochet removed socialist President Salvador Allende, who died by suicide in 1973 during a military coup and whose legacy Boric has often praised.