The Diplomat
The Second Vice-President of the Government, Yolanda Díaz, and the Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, both from the Unidas Podemos party in Pedro Sánchez’s government, have joined the trip that His Majesty the King will make next week to Chile to represent Spain at the inauguration of the new president of that country, Gabriel Boric, scheduled for the 11th.
It is customary for the King to attend the inauguration of new heads of state in Latin America, accompanied by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, but on this occasion, the Spanish delegation will be significantly increased, because Díaz and Montero have expressed their desire to be present, together with the monarch and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, at a ceremony that will bring together numerous leaders of the Latin American left.
Unidas Podemos expressed its satisfaction when Boric won the second round of the elections against the right-wing José Antonio Kast, breaking a cycle in which conservatives and social democrats had been alternating in the Chilean presidency.
Vice-President Yolanda Díaz published a video describing Boric as the “best possible project to widen democracy”, for championing a candidacy that widened the left-wing space, in the style of the new broad project with civil society that Díaz herself is trying to promote.
Podemos also expressed its support for him, and both Irene Montero and the leader of the party and Minister for Social Rights and Agenda 2030 wore T-shirts in support of Boric. Montero had already held talks with the new Chilean president in September on the progressive challenges and the candidacy of the Frente Amplio, which Boric championed.
In Santiago de Chile, the King is expected to hold talks with the outgoing president, Sebastián Piñera, and with the incoming president, Gabriel Boric, and the Foreign Minister will also meet with his future colleague, Antonia Urrejola, with whom the State Secretary for Ibero-America, Juan Fernández-Trigo, met last week.
So far, it is not known what Yolanda Díaz and Irene Montero will be doing, apart from attending the inauguration ceremony.
This will be the second time that a Podemos member of the government has accompanied the King at the inauguration of an Ibero-American president. In November 2020, the then First Vice-President, Pablo Iglesias, attended the inauguration of the President of Bolivia, Luis Arce, who invited him in a personal capacity.
The attendance of the then leader of Podemos was particularly controversial because he kept a parallel agenda during his stay in Bolivia, including the signing of the so-called ‘Declaration of La Paz’ with several politicians from the Latin American left.
The declaration stressed that the main threat to democracy and social peace in the 21st century is the “coup d’état of the ultra-right”, and was joined by the Argentinean president, Alberto Fernández and Arce, as well as former presidents Evo Morales (Bolivia), Rafael Correa (Ecuador), Dilma Rousseff (Brazil), Alexis Tsipras (Greece) and former Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.
