Santiago (EFE).- Chile’s Finance Minister, Mario Marcel, resigned on Thursday for “personal reasons,” less than seven months before the end of President Gabriel Boric’s term, according to the local press.
At a press conference, government spokeswoman Camila Vallejo said that a cabinet reshuffle ceremony would take place on Thursday afternoon, at which Marcel’s replacement is expected to be announced.
Marcel is a renowned 65-year-old economist and one of Boric’s closest allies. He was president of the Chilean Central Bank from 2016 to 2022. Boric then asked him to take charge of the Treasury portfolio at the start of his term and oversee the economic recovery following the pandemic.
Although he is an independent politician, Marcel is more aligned with socialism and has held various positions in center-left governments since the return to democracy in 1990.
Marcel’s appointment to the government was considered an attempt to reassure the markets, which were uneasy about Boric’s transformative program.
His appointment was well received by business elites, especially following his management of the issuing bank to contain the high inflation caused by the social aid provided to combat the COVID-19 crisis.
During his three-and-a-half-year tenure as head of the Treasury, Marcel has stabilized the Chilean economy, which grew by 2.6% in 2024, surpassing forecasts.
The issuing bank expects Chilean GDP to grow between 2% and 2.75% in 2025, with inflation converging to its 3% target in the first half of 2026.
Marcel’s leadership was also pivotal in securing the approval of the minimum wage increase and pension reform, a key promise of Boric’s administration, as well as in negotiations between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the United States to exclude copper cathodes (Chile’s primary export) from the 50% tariff imposed on the red metal.
However, Marcel received a big disappointment in March 2023 when the Chamber of Deputies rejected an ambitious tax reform that sought to raise 3.6% of GDP in four years, another of Boric’s flagship projects.
The economist’s departure comes just days before the parliamentary discussion of the government’s final budgets begins, and 24 hours after Boric dismissed the Minister of Agriculture, Esteban Valenzuela, amid disagreements over the parliamentary election lists on Nov. 16.
Valenzuela’s replacement will also be announced at the cabinet reshuffle ceremony on Thursday afternoon.
He was the only minister belonging to the Social Green Regionalist Federation (FRVS), a small party that recently decided to run with its own list in the parliamentary elections, causing discomfort within Boric’s governing coalition. EFE
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