Gabriel Boric: Who are the other leaders on the world list of millennial leaders?

They were born when military dictatorships ravaged much of Latin America and most of them had not even reached their first decade of life when the Berlin Wall fell. A generation of “millennials” has landed in the Presidency of several countries in recent years, which has just been joined by the Chilean Gabriel Boric.

With a difference of more than 10 points, the young left-wing deputy prevailed with 55.8% of the votes for the far-right José Antonia Kast in the elections with the greatest political tension since the end of the dictatorship three decades ago.

He started the race to La Moneda (government headquarters) with 35 years, the minimum age to apply, and will assume the position in March 2022 with 36 years and one month (he was born on February 11, 1986), becoming the youngest president of Chilean history and surpassing the one who held the record until now, Manuel Blanco Encalada (July 1826-September 1826).

“It is a generational change that not only happens here. It is a worldwide phenomenon, far beyond Boric ”, Valentina Rosas, an analyst at the Catholic University, told Efe.

His overwhelming triumph, as Mauricio Morales explained to Efe, “Responds to the wear and tear of the traditional parties that governed Chile the last 30 years and the request for change expressed in the social explosion “, when thousands of people took to the streets at the end of 2019 to protest against inequality.

For Claudia Heiss, from the University of Chile, it also has to do with a desire to “overcome the transition”: “Many of the people who were important after the end of Pinochet, such as Aylwin or Lagos, were in Chilean politics even before of the coup of 73 ″, he pointed to Efe.

WHO ARE YOUR PEOPLE?

Next year, Boric He will share international appointments with contemporaries from countries as far away, such as New Zealand or Finland, and Latin American neighbors, such as Costa Rica and El Salvador.

Despite being a year older than Boric, the finnish Sanna Marin He came to power in 2019 at only 33 years old, with a progressive speech that surprised even in advanced Scandinavia: “I am from a homoparental family and that has conditioned me so that equality and human rights are very important to me.”

Marin He shared a youth in Europe until very recently with Austrian Sebastian Kurz, who also became prime minister at the age of 33, but who resigned in October after being mentioned in the global Pandora Papers investigation.

Another of the “millennials” that has acquired a lot of notoriety in recent times is the New Zealander Jacinda Ardern, admired for her management during the first months of the pandemic and for making her motherhood compatible with the position.

For Jaime Abedrapo, head of the School of Government of the University of San Sebastián, social networks have played a “determining” role in the emergence of these new leaderships, being the Salvadoran Nayib B Watch its maximum exponent.

“Officially I am the coolest president in the world”he tweeted a few days after taking office in 2019.

The former mayor of San Salvador, questioned for his growing authoritarianism, ended the reign of the central-progressive Costa Rican Carlos Alvarado, who in April 2018 had become, at 38, the youngest president in America.

All these leaderships aroused fears at first due to their lack of inexperience, hence the importance of “adding transversal and intergenerational support,” Octavio Avendaño, from the University of Chile, told EFE.

“The ability to build agreements does not depend on age,” added Heiss.

“CHILE CHANGED”

Fought in the student struggles of a decade ago and a deputy since 2014, Boric seeks to end the neoliberal model installed during the dictatorship and is closely linked to the social unrest at the end of 2019 in favor of better basic services. Santiago is its great bastion and the youth its main supporters.

“Long live the young people of this country who have fought so hard! Chile changed “Leonor Orellana, 47, told EFE. While Esteban Moya confessed to Efe that at the age of 20 it is the first time that he has voted and that if participation has exceeded 50% in a country with an abstentionist tradition, it is because “the new generations want a different life, where diversity is valued in every sense”.

For Abedrapo, the generation born after 1980 has the advantage of having an “agenda of its own”, with demands more related to environmentalism and minorities, but it suffers from “important” defects, such as its “immediate” nature.

“In a short time they will no longer be and the questioning will arise because they have already administered power in a worse or better way,” added the expert in what he baptized as “the youth trap.

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