Boric sworn in as Chile’s president in sharp political shift

At the Congress building in the port city of Valparaiso, Boric, a tattooed former protest leader and lawmaker, took the presidential sash from outgoing billionaire President Sebastian Pinera, making him the country’s youngest ever elected leader.”Before the Chilean people, I make my pledge,” said Boric , who in a sign of changing times wore a shirt and jacket but no tie, unheard of for male presidents in strait-laced Chile.Boric’s rise has sparked hope among progressives in Chile, long a conservative bastion of free markets and fiscal prudence in volatile South America, but has also stoked fear that decades of economic stability could come undone.The leader of a broad leftist coalition including Chile’s communist party, he has vowed to overhaul a market-led economic model to fight inequality that sparked violent protests in 2019, though he as moderated hisBoric’s female-majority Cabinet was sworn in on Friday, with delegations from the United States, Spain, Argentina, Peru and others in attendance.Among a sea of suits and military garb, a part of the Senate was filled with representatives of Chile’s various indigenous communities in traditional attire.”It’s a sign that it’s going to be an inclusive government,” Cecilia Flores, an indigenous Aymara told Reuters in the chamber, adding it was the first time representatives from each indigenous group have been present at the inauguration.”It’s going to be a government that’s will make the social changes the people of Chile have been fighting for, especially indigenous groups.”High hopes may quickly butt up against a divided electorate and legislature, split down the middle between the right and left. Bubbling issues of crime, immigration and indigenous rights mean Boric’s government also has a full in-tray.”I wish him success in his future government,” outgoing president Pinera said in his final address, but cited concerns about identity politics, weakening of the judiciary and crime. “But also the wisdom to distinguish right from wrong.”