Chile’s youngest-ever president sworn in amid pledges on equality and poverty

LEFT-LEANING former student leader Gabriel Boric vowed to improve the lives of all Chileans and attack deep inequality that has sparked massive protests, hours after being inaugurated as the youngest president in the country’s history.

At 36, Mr Boric was only four years old when democracy returned to the South American nation following a 17-year military dictatorship that both bloodied and set the groundwork for modern Chile.

Mr Boric has vowed that his young, inclusive government will attack poverty and inequality that he said are the unacceptable underbelly of a free market model imposed decades ago by General Augusto Pinochet, who ruled from 1973 to 1990.

“We come to give ourselves body and soul to making life better in our country,” he said in a speech from a balcony of the government building, calling for unity to make Chile “a dignified and just country”.

“The road will undoubtedly be long and difficult,” he said.

His four-year term begins at a moment when a constituent assembly is drawing up a new constitution for the country to replace one adopted under Pinochet.

The Socialist Party leader of the Senate, Alvaro Elizalde, draped the presidential sash over Mr Boric’s shoulders during the ceremony in the legislative chambers in the port city of Valparaiso.

Soon afterwards, Mr Boric swore in the leader of what he has called a “feminist” cabinet – which comprises 14 women and 10 men.

Almost ostentatiously informal, the bearded young leader declined to wear a tie for the inauguration.

Mr Boric won 56 per cent of the vote in a December run-off against conservative Jose Antonio Kast.

While his election initially scared investors, causing drops in stock prices and the peso, he has since shown a pragmatic streak, vowing to maintain fiscal responsibility and naming a respected economist, former Central Bank president Mario Marcel, as finance minister.

“We are going to have to make the changes step by step because, if not, the risk of falling back is too great,” he said recently – a stance perhaps forced on him by his leftist coalition having only 37 of the 155 seats in congress.