The young socialist has Croatian roots, his companion has Greek ones
“A man who was not a socialist before 25 has no heart. If he continues to be a socialist after 25, he has no head.” These words were uttered by the Swedish King Oscar II back in 1923. A century later, a young and charismatic 36-year-old Chilean with Croatian roots will have the opportunity to prove that socialism is not just a temporary youth stagger. Gabriel Boric, who took office on March 11th as the youngest president in Chile’s history, the country where its first democratically elected socialist president was recently overthrown in a military coup and the ensuing military dictatorship repressed all left-wingers. Bearded, tattooed and almost never wearing a tie, Boric contrasts sharply with the traditional public image of Chilean presidents.
He was born on February 11 in the southernmost region of the country and in the world – Magallanes, in the capital Punta Arenas. He is a descendant of Croatian settlers on his paternal line. His mother has Catalan roots.
His great-grandfather, Ive Boric, and his great-grandmother, the Black Goddess, immigrated to Chile from the Croatian island of Ugljan in 1897 and were among the first Croatian settlers in the South American country. According to the website Zadarski.hr
there are more in Chile
people with the last name
Borich than on
Ugljan Island
Subsequently, in 2010, the future president visited the island to see the old house of his ancestors. He also meets distant relatives, including his cousin Domagoj Kambura, who describes Boric as shy, doesn’t even know a word of Croatian, but with perfect English and curious about everything. Shortly afterwards, however, in the period around the break-up of Yugoslavia, changes began in his life.
As a child, he went to lunch with his family every Sunday at the so-called Yugoslav Club until 1991, when it was renamed the Croatian Club. Over time, the change of the word “Yugoslav” to “Croatian” wherever it is contained – the club, the school, the street, greatly surprises him. It comes to a point where young Gabriel says to his grandmother during a family lunch:
“I am not a Croat,
I am a Yugoslav ”
As a student he attended a private British school in Punta Arenas, and then studied law at the University of Chile in the capital Santiago.
During the military dictatorship of 1973-1989, Chile became an experimental laboratory of the economic system of neoliberalism, making the country one of the most unequal in the world with major social inequalities in almost all spheres of society – including education. It was from among the pupils and students that the first major social protests in the country after the fall of the Pinochet dictatorship began.
Boric has been a vigilant activist since his student years. Between 2011 and 2013, he organized demonstrations across the country demanding free, accessible and quality education. Shortly afterwards, he was elected MP – for the first time as an independent, from his home region of Magalanes in Punta Arena – Chile’s Arctic region, and then in 2017 as part of the left-wing coalition “Wide Front”. It was the Broad Front and the Chilean Communist Party that stood behind him in the country’s 2021 presidential vote.
An avid reader of poetry and history, Boric quoted Albert Camus in his Twitter account as saying, “Doubt must follow conviction like a shadow.” Describes himself as a moderate socialist and
does not spare criticism of
other countries
with socialist
management,
including to Cuba.
I am convinced that just as we condemn human rights abuses in Chile during the dictatorship, the “white” coups in Brazil, Honduras and Paraguay, the Israeli occupation of Palestine or US interventionism, we on the left must condemn with equal force. the constant restriction of freedoms in Cuba, the repression of the Ortega government in Nicaragua, the dictatorship in China and the weakening of the basic conditions of democracy in Venezuela, “said Boric as an MP in 2018. That is why he criticizes Venezuelan President Nicolas
Maduro, who
describes as
Representative
The “cowardly” left
A year later, Chile was engulfed in the largest social protests since the fall of the Pinochet dictatorship, sparked initially by rising public transport fares and later escalated into mass demonstrations against rising prices, social inequality and corruption. A state of emergency was declared and clashes broke out with the police. And while he is one of the strongest opponents of the government’s approach to the protests, Boric has reached out to other parties in a bid to find a solution to the crisis, including center-right ones. This led to an agreement between the political forces to make changes to the constitution, which dates back to the time of Pinochet. However, his political allies have criticized him for negotiating with the right.
The protests subsided in 2020 due to the covid pandemic and the announcement of a lockdown in the country. However, this circumstance helps unite the left forces in the country against the background of preparations for a national referendum to change the constitution, which ends with 78% of those voting for such changes. The fruits of left-wing unification are evident when the favorite candidate for president of the united opposition, the communist Daniel Hadue, loses the race to Boric, and Hadou continues to support him during the campaign. In his program, Boric advocates a European model of prosperity. He promises to increase taxes on the rich, as well as an ambitious tax reform that will collect up to 5% of GDP in four years and replace the current private pension scheme from the time of the dictatorship. And he is a supporter of the compassionate approach of the state in its attitude towards the citizens.
“We are a generation that has emerged in public life, and we want our rights to be respected as such.
and not like
consumer goods ”,
Boric said in his victory speech to thousands of supporters, most of them young people.
He is not afraid to talk about his personal life and the need to touch on topics on which society is silent. Such is the case when Boric, as an MP, announced on his Instagram account that he was going to the hospital to be treated for his obsessive-compulsive disorder.
“As I said before, I have had OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) since I was a child, and on a doctor’s recommendation I decided to be responsible and treat it. It would be good to talk more about OCD and mental health in general later, because I know that this happens to many people and is a topic that is rarely addressed, “Boric wrote at the time. But he is not alone in the struggle. His companion in life in recent years,
as well as a comrade in
political struggles,
is his girlfriend
Irina Karamanos
– a well-educated woman and feminist. She is the daughter of Jorge Karamanos, a primary school teacher and leader of the Greek community in Santiago in the 1980s.
It is she who takes on the role of the first lady – a position she initially rejects because she believes it is an anachronism and that “times are different.” He later reconsidered and promised to adapt his position to modernity, using it to raise sensitive social issues for women in the country. Thus, one of Boric’s first steps was to present a cabinet with 14 women out of 24 ministers. Curiously, one of these women is
the Minister
of Defense – Maya
Fernandez Allende
– granddaughter of the first democratically elected president Salvador Allende.
Traditionally, even when taking office as president, the young Boric is without a tie. And a few days later, at a media briefing, the president wore a white shirt with his sleeves on, which shows some of his tattoos, many of which depict landscapes of his native Punta Arenas.
Although his presidency is until 2026, Boric has set a number of goals. When he won the nomination for president of the united left opposition, he vowed that “if Chile was the cradle of neoliberalism, it would be his grave.”
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