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This Wednesday, a day after Víctor Pérez (UDI) submitted his resignation to the Ministry of the Interior, the President Sebastián Piñera decided that he will appoint as his new chief of staff Rodrigo Delgado, also a union member and with whom the President met this Wednesday morning in La Moneda.
Thus, Delgado -Psychologist and who until now works as Mayor of Central Station-, will become the fourth chief of staff of the second Piñera administration. They had previously assumed Andres Chadwick -who began the period with the President in 2018 and resigned in October 2019-, Gonzalo blumel -also close collaborator of the President and who remained in office for 9 months- and Pérez.
The former UDI senator announced on Tuesday his resignation from the Interior Ministry after serving 98 days in the post. His departure came after the Chamber of Deputies approved the constitutional accusation filed against him -the seventh that has promoted the opposition against officials linked to the government- which made him the first secretary of this portfolio to be suspended since his return. to democracy.
Despite your resignation, the indictment will now be heard in the Senate, where now as a “citizen” -according to him he qualified yesterday- he risks being disqualified for five years from holding public office.
According to La Tercera in this edition, his departure took most of the cabinet by surprise and forced Piñera to start the search for his replacement. In fact, The Head of State, not having a clear design, had to appoint the undersecretary of the portfolio, Juan Francisco Galli, as the interim head of the Interior.
Among the names that sounded for Pérez’s replacement were the current Minister of Energy, Juan Carlos Jobet, who has been in the portfolio on several occasions; his pair of Public Works, Alfredo Moreno, and the head of the Segegob, Jaime Bellolio; and Delgado himself.
The dispute over who would assume the head of cabinet had centered in the last hours between Bellolio and Delgado, tensing the hours before the change. The President of the UDI, Jacqueline Van Rysselberghe, supported the mayor of Estación Central and communicated this to the President already on Monday when the fate of the then minister Pérez appeared sealed by the constitutional accusation presented by the opposition.
The President himself, however, was more inclined to his until then spokesman, with whom you have developed a closer relationship in the cabinet.
Meanwhile, and according to government sources, the arrival of Delgado would not imply a major adjustment to the cabinet.
Finally, the President opted for Delgado who, in any case, is waiting to finalize the resignation process to the mayor’s office before the Municipal Council and get the votes so that his replacement is a figure of the ruling party.
Sources in that municipality told La Tercera that the steps to summon the aforementioned council have already begun, to be held via Zoom at 17:30.
The Delgado’s political career began in the Municipality of Estación Central in 2000 invited by Gustavo Hasbún -with whom they were classmates- and who at that time served as mayor of the commune. There, the current minister, assumed as Director of Community Development (Dideco), a position he held until 2008 when Hasbún competed for a seat in the Chamber of Deputies and he ran for the head of said municipality, being elected with 36% of the votes. .
Then, he successfully reposted for office in 2012 and 2016. In these last elections, he won with 48% of the votes.
In April of this year, the exedil who that month assumed as President of the Chilean Association of Municipalities (Amuch), revealed in La Tercera his intentions to reach a quota as a member of the Constitutional Convention, since due to the Disabilities Law he could not opt for a fourth term in Central Station.
The new minister He had already stated that he was a supporter of ‘Approve’ in the plebiscite -something that played in favor of his nomination- which was held on October 25, despite the fact that his party, the UDI, had squared off with the ‘Rejection’. He even participated in campaign activities for this option in the company of other communal chiefs such as Joaquín Lavín.
“If the Plebiscite were this Sunday, I vote ‘I approve’. Among other things, because I feel responsible for a popular commune where in the last citizen consultation, almost 95% of the 24 thousand people who voted that day were for the “approval.” You have to listen to people and not be afraid of that participation, “he said at the time,” he said in February of this year in conversation with this medium.
Within the UDI, Delgado is close to figures such as Bellolio himself, with whom he will now share on the political committee, and from the Mayor of Providencia, Evelyn Matthei,
In 2013, when the current communal chief of Las Condes, Joaquín Lavín, left his position as generalissimo of the Matthei presidential campaign, Delgado requested leave without pay in the municipality and was in charge of the joint leadership of the campaign together with Karla Rubilar Y Felipe Closet.
