When 36-year-old Gabriel Boric was sworn in on Friday as the youngest president in Chilean history he immediately faced the need to resolve what is paradoxically the oldest problem this Andean nation has been enduring since before its independence in 1810.
Back in 1796, José Cos de Iriberri, a Chilean merchant, praised “the opulence and richness” of the land, going on to lament: “Who would think that in the midst of such abundance there would be such a scant population groaning under the heavy yoke of poverty, misery and vice.”
Of course, the ghost of Iriberri (who inhabited a Spanish province of less than a million souls), would not recognize contemporary Chile, a nation of 20 million people, groaning, rather, under the yoke of typical 21st-century troubles. And yet he might observe that inequality, injustice and corruption continue to haunt his native land. Now, though, there is a chance that this could change.
