Chile President confronting new protest after firing eight ministers
President Sebastian Pinera eight ministers.
Tuesday, 29th October 2019
President Sebastian Pinera confronted new protest on Monday after he supplanted eight ministers including his interior and financial serves, housekeeping planned for restraining the greatest political emergency since Chile's arrival to the majority rules system in 1990.
Fights a week ago that turned wild had just provoked Pinera to promise specialist agreeable changes. The inside right extremely rich person who trounced the radical resistance in 2017 decisions promised to support the lowest pay permitted by law and benefits, bring down the costs of drugs and open transportation and guarantee legitimate medical coverage.
On Monday Pinera sacked interior minister clergyman Andres Chadwick, his cousin and long-term compatriot who experienced harsh criticism a week ago for calling dissidents "hoodlums." He supplanted Chadwick, a conservative lawmaker, with Gonzalo Blumel, a 41-year-old administration pastor and contact with the governing body.
Ignacio Briones, a professor of economics, was also appointed by Pinera to replace finance minister Felipe Larrain.
"Chile has changed and the government has to change with it to face these new challenges," Pinera said in a televised
speech from the presidential palace in La Moneda.
A week of riots, arson and protests over inequality followed the shake-up, which left at least 17 dead. Thousands were arrested and $1.4 billion was lost to Chilean businesses. Chileans are calling for fresh demonstrations with Pinera's support at an all-time low, and the UN was sending a team to investigate reports of human rights abuses.
As Pinera spoke, protesters had already started gathering in downtown Santiago outside the presidential palace, waving flags, hanging horns, and calling for his ouster. Security forces immediately dispersed them with tear gas.
Thousands had started to gather again later that day for a rally at Plaza Italia, one of the main squares of the city.
Chile, the world's leading producer of copper, has long boasted one of the most prosperous and stable economies in Latin America, with low levels of poverty and
unemployment.
Yet frustration over deep-rooted poverty and spiraling living cost had cooled under the surface. In recent months, the demonstrations that broke out last week
resembled similar scenes around the world, with protesters furious at ruling elites from Hong Kong to Beirut to Barcelona.
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