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Gabriel Boric's presidency has meant a change for Chile beyond the style of governing.

 

 

 

In the same Chile that elected Gabriel Boric as the youngest president in its history, today it is common to hear questions about his expertise in the position he has held for a year.

A survey by the firm Cadem published this weekend indicates that only 12% of Chileans believe that Boric, 37, has the experience to govern and concludes that, along with public security problems, this is the "main reason" his disapproval level of 62%.

These are paradoxical figures for a country that since October 2019 demanded changes in the streets, massively rejected the traditional political class and in December 2021 consecrated the youngest president of Latin America at the polls.

"Many times the electorate wants to see new faces but also wants experience," says Robert Funk, professor of political science at the University of Chile, in an interview with BBC Mundo. "It's contradictory, but it's a pretty common thing."

This expert - who in the last Chilean elections explained that the great political division of the country is generational - believes that age has played against and also in favor of Boric in his first year in office.

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And he points out that, although the leftist president has political experience, he has made rookie mistakes from power, such as taking a key tax reform to a vote in Congress without securing the necessary support (the project foundered on Wednesday, March 8 in Deputies).

What follows is a summary of the telephone conversation with Funk, who is also a partner at the consulting firm Andes Risk Group.

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How important do you think the generational change has been during the first year of Boric's government?

There are two aspects.

One is that the Chilean electorate wanted to see a new generation in power, new ideas, people addressing some issues that are more of the 21st century, like climate change. And they saw in Boric that possibility.

robert funk
IMAGE SOURCE, PERSONAL ARCHIVE
Caption,
Robert Funk is a professor at the Faculty of Government of the University of Chile.

Indeed, in the government there is a whole generation of people of 30 or 35 years governing.

What happens is that many times, when a new generation arrives, it has all the benefits of youth, but also its weaknesses. And one of them is a relative lack of experience.

Boric has been in politics for 10 years, he was in Congress and was a student leader, but leading a government, managing a state apparatus, is not easy, especially if many of the people around him share that lack of experience.

So we're seeing in some ways lately the results of that lack of experience: just not knowing how to advance his own agenda.

What does it mean to be a new generation politician in Chile today?

The underlying issue has to do with something that is common throughout the world: there are new issues that many people expected parties and politicians to solve.

Boric in his campaign addressed those issues, such as the environment, the rights of indigenous communities or access to water.

In the Chilean case, this coincides with a long-standing demand.

Our political system has been governed by a Constitution written during a dictatorship and that the political class, despite the reforms that have been made to it, felt that it did not have the power or the capacity to eliminate and make a new one.

In the same way, that previous generation thought that they had to maintain the economic model inherited from the military regime, with many changes but essentially very focused on the market.

Therefore, a generation comes along that does not have the fears of the previous one and says: "We are going to make a new Constitution, to change the economic system and move towards a more social-democratic model of State."

It is not just a political change and it arises from the coming to power of a generation without the traumas of the previous one.

But has he managed to promote this new agenda from the government?

In some ways yes and in others no.

If one sees, for example, the issue of gender equality, there has been a much more present discourse, attempts to have joint cabinets, appoint more women to important positions, etc. I think there is an effort.

 

https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-america-latina-64919799