On March 11 a new president took the helm of the Chilean government. Gabriel Boric, born in 1986, is the youngest person to be elected president of Chile. He is also the most left of all the presidents elected since the restoration of democracy in 1990. Boric has appointed the first majority female cabinet in Latin America and, as one of his first acts, met with indigenous Mapuche leaders (the largest group of native peoples in Chile) and signed the Escazú Environmental Treaty to help protect environmental activists.

In other actions, Boric has promised to balance social reforms with fiscal responsibility and proposed doubling the fuel stabilization fund (government money used to subsidize the price of gasoline and heating fuel) from $750 million (U.S.) to $1.5 billion (U.S.) as a way to offset inflation caused by the invasion of the Ukraine.

At the same time, an elected constituent assembly (C.A.) is writing a new constitution to replace the Pinochet-era document that currently governs the country. The C.A. has extended its deadline for completing the document to July 5 of this year. If they do not have an agreed upon document at that time, the old constitution remains in effect. If they do approve a new constitution, it must be submitted to a national plebiscite before the end of this year.

Boric’s election raises an important question: Are Chile and the rest of Latin America moving left against the neoliberal order that dominates the region? We shall see if a pink tide is again rising in Latin America.

Michael Livingston is an antiwar activist with the Minnesota Peace Action Coalition. He taught at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez in Chile in 2014, 2016, and 2019.  He is currently a professor of psychology at St. John’s University and the College of St. Benedict in Minnesota.