The Chile’s new president, Gabriel Boric, affirmed in his first speech that it is necessary to “repair the wounds of the social outbreak”. This in reference to the wave of protests that began in 2019 and left around thirty dead and thousands injured.
Boric
“We need to repair the wounds left by the social outbreak. That is why we have withdrawn the complaints by Law of Internal Security of the State». This was stated by him from a balcony in the Palacio de La Moneda, seat of the Chilean government.
The day before, his government announced that it would eliminate almost 140 lawsuits once morest protesters who were detained during this massive wave of demonstrations, which shook the foundations of the country and put the government of then-President Sebastián Piñera in check.
“We are convinced that as Chilean men and women we have the obligation to meet and we are going to work intensely on that,” he added.
possible pardons
“Trial once morest Piñera,” shouted the masses that gathered to hear the president’s first words. This, at 36 years of age, is the youngest and most voted in the history of Chile.
He also referred to the possible pardon of the detained protesters, one of the most thorny issues of the electoral campaign and of the last months of Piñera’s term.
“We have spoken with their families, they know we are working on it,” he said.
While the right repudiates the idea of an amnesty and maintains that there are no political prisoners in Chile. From the left they denounce that during the marches there was a disproportionate state response followed by mass arrests.
Parliament
Parliament is discussing a bill to grant them pardon, an initiative on which Boric was initially in favor but regarding which he later showed misgivings.
“It is not acceptable to think of a pardon for everyone,” he said a few months ago.
Boric leads a coalition between the Broad Front and the Communist Party, an alliance with a program that promises structural changes in the deeply neoliberal Chilean system and a welfare model similar to the European one.
For experts, his government marks the beginning of a new political era, since the young president is the first president who is not part of the two large center blocs that have governed since the return to democracy in 1990 and is the most leftist. from Salvador Allende (1970-1973).
