The President of Chile, Gabriel Boric, undertook this Tuesday a profound remodeling of his cabinet that affected relevant figures, including the Ministers of the Interior, Izkia Siches; of the presidency, Giorgio Jackson, and the political committee, the nucleus in which the decisions of depth in the Palace of La Moneda.
The restructuring of the cabinet, which turns towards the center left, is the first in its almost six months in office, it comes two days after the overwhelming triumph of rejection in the plebiscite to change the Constitution and takes place amid pressure from the opposition and tensions within the left-wing coalition on which the president relies.
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Boric appointed as the new Minister of the Interior Carolina Toha, daughter of Jose Toha, Prime Minister of the Interior in the government of the ousted president Salvador Allende and one of the men who was retaliated against and imprisoned by the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) and member of the Center Party for Democracy (PPD).
As minister of the presidency, the president chose Ana Lya Uriarte, a woman from the Socialist party with a broad career and political experience.
Jackson, one of the men closest to the president, a partner in the student protests, remains in the Government as the new Minister of Social Development and Family, while the new Minister of Health joins the epidemiologist Ximena Aguilera.
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He also joins the Executive Diego Pardowmember of Social Convergence, the same party as the president, as Minister of Energy, and Silvia Diazan independent close to the PPD, who becomes the first Minister of Science in the history of Chile.
Controversy in the undersecretary
The announcement of the changes and the swearing-in ceremony were delayed for more than an hour, apparently due to the controversy sparked by the appointment of the former student leader and member of the communist party as Undersecretary of the Interior, Nicholas Cataldowho became the shortest deputy secretary in Chilean history.
Shortly after the news was known, members of the opposition and the local newspaper “La Tercera” rescued from social networks, mainly Twitter, messages from Cataldo in 2011 in which harshly criticized the military and accused them of infiltrating the protests, torturing and overstepping its attributions.
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One of the most critical of the appointment was the former Minister of Education, Marcela Cubilloswho assured that “if that is true, the Government has decided to laugh in the face of the victims of violence and of the southern macrozone”, in relation to the conflict in Araucanía.
Cataldo was going to replace in the position to Manuel Monsalve, A prominent member of the PPD who sounded like the new minister of the presidency, and who after the dismissal of Cataldo – whose appointment had been made official by the Presidency – remained in office.