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Gabriel Boric

President of Chile from 2022 to 2026

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Born in Punta Arenas to a family of Croatian and Catalan descent, Boric studied law at the University of Chile without completing his degree. He rose to national prominence as a student leader during the 2011–2013 Chilean student protests, heading the University of Chile Student Federation. First elected to the Chamber of Deputies as an independent in 2013, he was re-elected in 2017 under the Broad Front coalition. In 2018, he co-founded the Social Convergence party. During the 2019 civil unrest, he helped broker the agreement that led to the 2020 constitutional referendum.

In December 2021, Boric won the presidential election, defeating José Antonio Kast in the second round with 55.9% of the vote. Upon taking office on 11 March 2022, he became the youngest president in Chilean history. His cabinet was the first in the Americas with a female majority. A proposed new constitution supported by his government was rejected by voters in September 2022.

Early life

Family

Gabriel Boric was born in Punta Arenas in 1986. On his father's side, Boric hails from a Croatian-Chilean family with roots in Ugljan, an island off the Adriatic coast of Croatia. Despite his ancestors' migration from the Austro-Hungarian Empire to Chile in 1897, Boric maintains connections with his relatives residing in Ugljan. His great-grandfather, Juan Boric (Ive Borić Barešić), along with his brother Simón (Šime), arrived in Punta Arenas around 1885, being among the initial ten Croats to settle in Magallanes. They ventured into the Tierra del Fuego gold rush in the Magallanes region, spending time on the islands south of the Beagle Channel. Subsequently, Juan Boric briefly returned to Ugljan to marry, and brought his wife, Natalia Crnosija, back to Magallanes, where ten of their eleven children were born. Boric's grandfather, Luis Boric Crnosija, born in 1908, was one of them.

Gabriel Boric's father, Luis Boric Scarpa, is a chemical engineer who served as a government employee at Empresa Nacional del Petróleo for over 40 years. His mother, María Soledad Font Aguilera, is of Catalan descent. Gabriel Boric has two brothers, Simón and Tomás. In the Patagonian region of Magallanes, Boric's granduncle, Vladimiro Boric, became the first bishop of Punta Arenas. Another granduncle, Roque Scarpa Martinich, assumed the role of the first intendant of the Magallanes Region following the military dictatorship. Both Roque Scarpa and Gabriel Boric's father were members of the Christian Democratic Party. Yet another granduncle, Roque Esteban Scarpa, won the 1980 Chilean National Prize for Literature, and his granduncle Vicente Boric was also a writer.

Education

Boric studied at The British School in his hometown before moving to Santiago in 2004 to attend law school at the University of Chile. He completed his coursework in 2009, coinciding with his appointment as the President of the Law School students' union. Afterward, he focused on preparing for his final exam and fulfilling his mandatory internship. However, he did not pass the test in 2011 and chose not to retake it. Boric did not obtain a law degree and has expressed in interviews that he never intended to pursue a career as a lawyer, instead aspiring to become a writer.

During his university years, Boric had the opportunity to work as an assistant to Professor José Zalaquett in his human rights course. Zalaquett commended Boric for his inclination to question and doubt, as revealed in an interview.

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