Salvador Allende's granddaughter to become Chile's defense minister

Eugene Bai

The November elections in Chile riveted the attention of the whole world. As already reported by NI, two candidates with diametrically opposed political positions agreed on them - the far-right Jose Antonio Cast, who repeatedly praised the former military dictator Augusto Pinochet, and the left-wing politician Gabriel Boric, whose ideology is close to the once deposed leader of the National Unity, Salvador Allende.

Latin American experts gave priority to Kast with his "Law and order”. But as a result, the socialist Borich won by a significant margin. In a word, Pinochet was expected, but Allende came, and this, as subsequent events showed, was not only a figure of speech.

In the new government of Chile, which will take up its functions on March 11, when Boris will be inaugurated, there are 14 women and 10 men. Representatives of the "weaker sex" will occupy key positions, including in power ministries.

So, the Minister of Defense of Chile will be 50-year-old Maya Fernandez, the youngest granddaughter of Salvador Allende. After the September 1973 military coup, her family emigrated to Cuba. In 1990, after Pinochet stepped down from power and the first democratic government was formed in the country, Fernandez returned to her homeland and entered the University of Chile at the Faculty of Biology.

In 1992, she - grandfather's genes declared themselves - joined the Socialist Party of Chile. Maya was later elected to local authorities, and in 2013 she became a member of parliament. But how will she, a biologist by profession, fulfill the role of defense minister? Especially in the Chilean military forces, where a significant part of the generals and officers remember Pinochet with nostalgia?

A similar question can be asked about the appointment of Ischia Siches, a doctor by training, who, like the new President Boric, is 35 years old as the Minister of the Interior? Two and a half years ago, an unprecedented social explosion took place in Chile, when tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest against the unfair, in their opinion, distribution of wealth in the country. Any serious oversight of the new government and social turbulence may return again.

Chileans, of course, are not indifferent to what strategy the new Foreign Minister, Antonia Urrejola, will adopt. Her father Carlos Urrecola was also among those who suffered during the military coup. The junta threw him into prison, and when he was released, he emigrated to England with his family.

The election of Gabriel Borich was greeted with enthusiasm by the Latin American left. He was loudly applauded by the Brazilian national leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and the incomparable Cristina Kirchner, Vladimir Putin's favorite, who in Argentina is called "Chavez in a skirt", and the Mexican president, a friend of Cuba, Lopez Obrador. And, of course, Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and Cuban President Manuel Diaz-Canel were delighted.

However, Latin America's orthodox left is likely to be disappointed. After 2019, Boric withdrew his support for the Venezuelan regime. "We, the Chilean left should categorically condemn the violations of human rights in Venezuela by the government of Nicolás Maduro,” such was his rhetoric. And the new Minister of Foreign Affairs Urrejola is known for her active support of Nicaraguan human rights activists in the fight against the eternal dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo.

The youngest government in Chile in the history of the country (the average age of new ministers is 42 years) will have to work in extremely difficult conditions. Half of the seats in the National Congress of Chile are occupied by supporters of the right. Boric's Apruebo Dignidad party has only about a quarter of the votes there. "With this kind of support, the new government won't be able to make major structural reforms," forecasts economist Jaime Abedrapo of the University of San Sebastian.

Be that as it may, the experiment of the young left in Chile is of great interest in a world tired of being alone. and the same old boring politicians who are not able to offer humanity any new ideas.