New faces among surprises as president-elect Bachelet announces cabinet

President-elect Bachelet announces cabinet

http://santiagotimes.cl/new-faces-among-surprises-president-elect-bachelet-announces-cabinet/  

Bachelet ends days of rumors, fake Twitter accounts and leaked locations, announcing cabinet with nine women, one communist and an ex-rival.

President-elect Michelle Bachelet has put an end to days of speculation, announcing a cabinet which includes three standing parliamentarians, three former ministers and a number of young faces.

The Socialist Party (PS) made the announcement late Friday afternoon at the Hotel San Francisco in downtown Santiago, a little more than one month after she was elected on a platform of significant reform by a landslide margin.

Among the noteworthy appointments were Radical Social Democratic Party (PRSD) Sen. José Antonio Gómez — one of Bachelet’s three rivals in July’s primary elections — who will resume his former post of justice minister (1993-2003) and Claudia Pascual, who will head the National Women’s Service (Sernam).

Pascual becomes the first member of the Communist Party (PC) appointed as a minister since the military coup of Sept. 11, 1973.

Chief of staff in Bachelet’s previous government and one of the president-elect’s closest advisers, Rodrigo Peñailillo (39) was appointed interior minister, one of several youthful figures to get the nod.

The former sales engineer studied political science in Spain after the dispersion of Bachelet’s previous government.

Women accounted for nine out of the 23 available ministerial positions.

In the official ceremony, Bachelet said her selections for the ministerial positions were influenced by the administration’s determination to have a gender balanced cabinet.

“I would have liked a team completely balanced in terms of gender, and clearly this has not happened,” Bachelet said. “But I accept the tremendous challenge we have as a country — to incorporate more women into positions of responsibility.”

Currently, the female representation in Congress is only 14.2 percent in the lower house and 13.2 in the Senate.

However, according to Universidad Católica political scientist Jorge Schiappacasse, most women were placed in “less visible ministries.”

One of the female officials, Christian Democrat (DC) Sen. Ximena Rincón was among three parliamentarians who will now have to resign from their constituencies to accept a cabinet position. Rincón was appointed as general secretary to the president, while incoming Defense Minister Jorge Burgos while have to step down as DC deputy along with Sen. Gómez.

According to Sergio Urzua, economics professor at Universidad Católica, Bachelet’s election of leading economists to so many of the top positions in her cabinet — including interior, education, and transport ministers — bodes well for the incoming administration.

Urzua said Alberto Arenas, appointed as the finance minister, and Luis Felipe Céspedes as the economy minister — both of whom served as advisors in Bachelet’s previous government (2006-2010) — are each “very well prepared” for the challenges ahead.

Nicolás Eyzaguirre will head the education ministry — what Urzua says will likely be a “key” ministry during the next four years — and the economics professor indicated the election of a leading economist was crucial to implementing the ambitious education reforms promised by Bachelet’s government.

“Eyzaguirre is a great economist, but he also has the political background that is going to be extremely useful in the context of what’s coming. I think Eyzaguirre has the skills and the knowledge to carry out the agenda,” he told The Santiago Times.

The president-elect’s appointments came after days of frantic media speculation as to when and where she would make her cabinet official, fueled by rumors, leaks and even a fake Twitter account purporting to represent her campaign.

According to Universidad Católica political scientist Jorge Schiappacasse the president-elect’s apparent hesitancy in appointing her ministers stems from the harsh criticism her cabinet received during her first administration.

“The last time she won on Jan. 16 and she announced her cabinet the last week of January. This time she was elected in December and is announcing her cabinet much later,” he told The Santiago Times. “After the criticism she received of the elected ministers last time, she wants to ensure that everything is perfect, that there is a perfect cabinet.”

National media speculated that Bachelet would make her choices public Thursday, and a Twitter account under the username @GabineteMB sparked speculation by posting an alleged list of chosen officials, though the account turned out to be entirely false.

Bachelet’s official Twitter account refuted the claims and the imposter account was temporarily suspended and later rebooted with a disclaimer announcing no official relationship with the president-elect.

The other appointments were: Heraldo Muñoz as foreign relations minister, Álvaro Elizalde as general secretary of the government, Máximo Pacheco as energy minister, Pablo Badenier as environment minister, Aurora Williams as mining minister, Andrés Gómez-Lobo as transportation minister, Alberto Undurraga as public works minister, Javiera Blanco as labor minister, Carlos Furche as agriculture minister, Paulina Sabal as housing minister, Víctor Osorio as national assets minister, Helia Molina as health minister, Claudia Barattini as culture minister and Natalia Riffo as sports minister.

Six parties within the Nueva Mayoría coalition are represented with stalwarts the Christian Democrats (DC), the Party for Democracy (PPD) and the Bachelet’s own Socialist Party (PS) each having five members. The Social Democrat Radical Party (PRSD) is represented by two members, the Christian Left (IC) and the Communist Party (PC) by one each, with an additional four independents.

Bachelet will continue to deliberate over the weekend before announcing the rest of her cabinet — undersecretaries and regional governors — sometime next week.

Emily McHugh (mchugh@santiagotimes.cl)&Consuelo Fernanda Laclaustra (consuelo@santiagotimes.cl)

Copyright 2014 – The Santiago Times

Michelle Bachelet

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1009973/Michelle-Bachelet

Michelle Bachelet, in full Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria   (born September 29, 1951, Santiago, Chile), Chilean politician who served as president of Chile from 2006 to 2010 and was reelected in December 2013. She was the first female president of Chile and the first popularly elected South American president whose political career was established independently of her husband.

Bachelet’s father was a general in Chile’s air force, and her mother was an archaeologist. In 1973 her father was arrested for opposing the military coup that brought Augusto Pinochet to power and was tortured for several months before suffering a heart attack and dying in custody in 1974. Bachelet, then a medical student at the University of Chile, was arrested (along with her mother) and sent to a secret prison, where she also was tortured. Released into exile in 1975, Bachelet lived in Australia before moving to East Germany, where she became active in socialist politics and studied at the Humboldt University of Berlin. In 1979 she returned to Chile and subsequently completed her medical degree.

Although Bachelet’s family history made it difficult for her to find employment in Pinochet’s Chile, eventually she joined a medical clinic that treated victims of torture. After Pinochet was ousted from power in 1990, she became active in politics, particularly in the medical and military fields. In 1994 she was appointed an adviser to Chile’s minister for health, and she subsequently studied military affairs at Chile’s National Academy of Strategy and Policy as well as the Inter-American Defense College in Washington, D.C. Bachelet also was elected to the central committee of the Socialist Party (Partido Socialista). In 2000 Ricardo Lagos, the candidate of the Coalition of Parties for Democracy (Concertación de los Partidos por la Democracia; CPD), a group of centre and centre-left parties, was inaugurated as Chile’s first socialist president since Salvador Allende in 1973, and Bachelet was appointed health minister. In 2002 she became the first woman to lead the Defense Ministry.

In 2005 Bachelet was selected by the CPD as its presidential candidate. Her campaign focused on meeting the needs of the country’s poor, reforming the pension system, promoting the rights of women, and recognizing constitutionally the rights of the indigenous Mapuche people. She also promised continuity in foreign affairs, especially regarding Chile’s close ties with the United States and other Latin American countries. Important in a country where Roman Catholicism is strong, Bachelet’s campaign had to counter her professed agnosticism and the fact that she was a divorced mother of three. She led the first round of voting in December 2005 but failed to receive a majority, which was required to win outright. In the runoff on January 15, 2006, she defeated the conservative candidate Sebastián Piñera, winning 53 percent of the vote, and she was sworn in as president in March.

Months after taking office, however, Bachelet faced domestic difficulties. Students who were dissatisfied with Chile’s public education system staged massive protests, and labour unrest resulted in demonstrations and a strike by copper miners. In 2007 Santiago’s new transportation system, a plan formulated by former president Lagos, was introduced and proved chaotic, sparking much criticism. Bachelet’s popularity fell sharply amid the series of problems, but it rebounded during the second half of her term, largely because of her economic policies. When the price of copper—one of Chile’s main exports—peaked, she directed the government to set aside the profits. The savings enabled the country to easily weather the global financial crisis of 2008 and funded pension reforms, social programs, and a stimulus package to create jobs. Bachelet was also credited with reducing poverty and improving early childhood education. Largely as a result of those successes, Bachelet found herself among the most popular presidents in Chilean history; however, the constitution prevented her from serving a consecutive term. In 2010, with the end of her term approaching, she oversaw relief efforts after a magnitude-8.8 earthquake struck Chile, causing extensive damage (see Chile earthquake of 2010).

After leaving office, Bachelet in 2010 became head of the newly established UN Women (formally called the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women). She was again the candidate of the centre-left bloc in the 2013 Chilean presidential election. Although she finished at the top of the nine-candidate field in the first round of voting in November, she fell just short of the absolute majority necessary to prevent a runoff against the second-place finisher, Evelyn Matthei, of the ruling conservative Alianza coalition. Like Bachelet, Matthei was the daughter of an army general, and the two women had been childhood friends. Matthei’s father, however, had sided with and thrived within the Pinochet regime. Bachelet won the runoff decisively (capturing about 62 percent of the vote to some 38 percent for Matthei) to become the first two-time president of Chile since the end of Pinochet’s rule. She came into office promising to raise taxes on corporations, to reform education, and to revise the constitution.

Heraldo Muñoz

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heraldo_Muñoz

Heraldo Muñoz Valenzuela (born July 22, 1948) is a Chilean politician and diplomat, the former Chilean Ambassador to the United Nations, and currently Assistant Secretary General, Assistant Administrator, and Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean of the United Nations Development Programme.

He holds a Ph.D. from Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver, Colorado (1978), a Diploma in International Relations from the Catholic University of Chile (1975, graduated with honors), and also took courses at Harvard University. He received a B.A. with a major in Political Science at the State University of New York, Oswego. Recipient of the "Distinguished Alumnus Award" from the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver (1991), he was bestowed with the title of Doctor Honoris Causa from the State University of New York (1996). He has received fellowships from: Resources for the Future, the Ford Foundation, the Tinker Foundation, the Twentieth Century Fund, and the MacArthur Foundation. He was a Ph.D. fellow at the Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C. (1977). He later taught at the University of Chile's Institute of International Studies.

Presidente del Colegio Médico sobre Helia Molina: "Es una gran mujer y una excelente médico

http://www.emol.com/noticias/nacional/2014/01/24/641433/presidente-del-colegio-de-medico-sobre-helia-molina-es-una-gran-mujer-y-una-excelente-medico.html

SANTIAGO.- El presidente del Colegio Médico, Enrique Paris, manifestó su aprobación al nombramiento de Helia Molina (66) como ministra de Salud para el próximo Gobierno de Michelle Bachelet.

"La conozco y me parece una excelente médico. Ella es una gran mujer", dijo Paris sobre la especialista en Pediatría y Nefrología que asumirá en 11 de marzo la cartera. 

"Para mí es un gran nombre y espero que sea una excelente ministra", agregó.

Respecto a los desafíos que deberá asumir la nueva titular del Ministerio de Salud, indicó que "espero que con tranquilidad las expectativas se cumplan".

"Que se refuerce la atención pública, que logren que más médicos y especialistas vuelvan al servicio público, que se pueda aportar a la salud en regiones, que se busque una solución a las camas de urgencia, que se pueda dotar de medicamentos la atención primaria", mencionó el vocero del gremio.

Paris señaló que como Colegio Médico fueron a saludar a la nueva ministra y "cuando asuma pediremos una reunión con ella".

Cultura: el currículum de la nueva ministra Claudia Barattini

http://www.lanacion.cl/noticias/cultura-y-entretencion/cultura/cultura-el-curriculum-de-la-nueva-ministra-claudia-barattini/2014-01-24/180600.html

Claudia Barattini es la nueva Ministra de Cultura del próximo Gobierno de Michelle Bachelet, quien siempre ha estado ligada al mundo de la cultura y las artes.

Nació en Valparaíso en 1960, hija de Juan Barattini, figura de las artes escénicas chilenas, y Marta Contreras, cantante y actriz.

Tras el Golpe Militar, en 1974, acompañando a sus padres salió al exilio. En la década de los '80 volvió a Chile, a formar parte de la recuperación por la democracia.

En el exilió vivió en Polonia, donde cursó estudios de ballet clásico. Luego se trasladó a Italia.

En el ámbito cultural se ha destacado como gestora cultural y experta en cooperación internacional, con estudios en economía, historia y danza en las universidades de Sapienza de Roma, en la Academia Nacional de Danza (ambas de Roma) UMCE de Santiago.

En su trayectoria laboral fue agregada cultural en la Embajada de Chile en Roma bajo la presidencia de Michelle Bachelet (2006-2010).

También fue coordinadora del proyecto de Fundación Rockefeller: Red Latinoamericana de Productores Independientes de Arte Contemporáneo (1994), directora de la Corporación de Desarrollo de la Mujer La Morada de Santiago de Chile (1998-1999), coordinadora de diversos programas de cooperación al desarrollo de Italia y la Unión Europea en Brasil, Colombia y Venezuela (2000-2006), comisaria del Pabellón de Chile en la Bienal de Arte y Arquitectura de Venecia (2007-2008-2009).

Desde el 2010 se desempeña como directora de Asuntos Internacionales y Coproducciones de Fundación Teatro a Mil, donde dirige Platea 14 - Semana de Programadores del Festival Santiago a Mil-, una de las mayores plataformas de mercado para las artes escénicas de América Latina.

Rodrigo Peñailillo

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodrigo_Peñailillo

Rodrigo Julián Peñailillo Briceño (Cabrero, 12 de diciembre de 1973) es un ingeniero comercial y político chileno, militante del Partido por la Democracia.

Entre 2002 y 2005 fue gobernador de la Provincia de Arauco, cargo que abandonó para sumarse a la campaña presidencial de Michelle Bachelet. Tras su victoria, Peñailillo asumió como jefe de gabinete en el Palacio de La Moneda. Durante la segunda campaña presidencial de Bachelet, Peñailillo fue uno de sus asesores más cercanos.1

El 24 de enero de 2014, Peñailillo fue anunciado como ministro del Interior y Seguridad Pública para el segundo gobierno de Michelle Bachelet, cargo que asumirá el 11 de marzo del mismo año.

Nicolás Eyzaguirre

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolás_Eyzaguirre

Nicolás Eyzaguirre Guzmán (born 3 January 1953 in Santiago) is a Chilean economist, currently designated as future Minister of Education of Chile (term starts in March 2014). Previously, he was Chile's Minister of Finance between 2000 and 2006. He is the son of architect Joaquín Eyzaguirre and actress Delfina Guzmán.

Eyzaguirre received his secondary education at the elite Colegio Verbo Divino private school. A music enthusiast, at the age of 15 he was admitted to the University of Chile Conservatory to study classic guitar, being lured by the Nueva canción movement. With his brother, Joaquín, he part was of the folk group Aquelarre, composing titles such as, The captive of Tiltil and Valparaíso.

Eyzaguirre began his career in politics as a member of the Christian Democrat Party, and then migrated to the Christian Left Party and then to the Communist Party, where he stayed until his departure to the United States. He graduated as a Commercial Engineer with a mention in Economy at the University of Chile, and obtained his Masters degree in Economy at the same university, specializing in economic development. Later, he traveled to the United States to obtain a Doctorate in Macroeconomics and International Trade from the University of Harvard, which he never completed.