MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Most of Chile's future ministers will be women, Boric announces

“We are joined in this team of ministers by people of diverse origins and formations,” Boric said

Chile's President-elect, Gabriel Boric, Friday chose former Central Bank President Mario Marcel as the country's future Finance Minister of Finance, and former mendica College Head for Minister of the Interior as he announced his cabinet, which shall be made up of mostly women. Boric will take office on March 11.

Marcel, an independent economist linked to the Socialist Party, has resigned his office at the Central Bank Thursday. He has also held various positions in the center-left governments, between 1990 and 2008, and is regarded aas a moderate among market operators ahead of the reforms Boric seeks to implement.

The 35-year-old Siches, future Minister of the Interior and Cabinet Chiefis a surgeon from the University of Chile and in 2017 she became the first woman to reach the presidency of the Medical College. She has had an active participation during the pandemic.

Boric's cabinet of 24 ministers, will include 14 women.

The list also includes the granddaughter of former socialist President Salvador Allende (1970-1973) Maya Fernández as Minister of Defense.

”We are joined in this team of ministers by people of diverse origins and formations, a diverse cabinet, a cabinet with a majority of women (...), with the presence of regions, intergenerational, with political plurality, with diverse points of view and with a strong presence also of independents and militants of political parties,” said Boric Friday at a ceremony held at Natural History Museum of Santiago.

Several future ministers could not attend the event. Some of them were on holidays while others were isolating due to COVID-19, according to press reports.

The average age of the future cabinet is 49 years. The youngest of them all will be the 32-year-old Antonia Orellana, who will head the Ministry for Women.