Jorge Alessandri
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Jorge Alessandri | |
---|---|
26th President of Chile | |
In office 3 November 1958 – 3 November 1964 | |
Preceded by | Carlos Ibáñez del Campo |
Succeeded by | Eduardo Frei Montalva |
Minister of Finance | |
In office 2 August 1947 – 7 February 1950 | |
President | Gabriel González Videla |
Preceded by | Germán Picó Cañas |
Succeeded by | Arturo Maschke |
Senator of the Republic | |
In office 15 May 1957 – 3 November 1958 | |
Constituency | Santiago |
Deputy of the Republic | |
In office 15 May 1926 – 15 May 1930 | |
Constituency | Santiago |
Personal details | |
Born | Jorge Alessandri Rodríguez May 19, 1896 entrepreneur, politician |
Signature | |
Jorge Eduardo Alessandri Rodríguez (Latin American Spanish:
Early years
Jorge Alessandri was born in
He withdrew from public life in 1932 to concentrate on business interests, becoming president of the mortgage bank, Caja de Crédito Hipotecario until 1938 and running the Paper and Cardboard Manufacturing Company. From 1944 to 1947, he was chairman of the Chilean employers' confederation.
Return to politics
The early years of the Presidency of Gabriel González were marked by serious unrest between left and right-wing supporters, and on 2 August 1947 González named a cabinet of military officers and independents in a supposed attempt to depoliticise the situation. Alessandri was named Minister of Finance, where he reordered the system of administration and pursued a rigorous programme of austerity.
By 1950, he had restored order to the public finances and controlled inflation. However, his freezes of public sector remuneration gradually led to greater industrial unrest. Public sector workers came out on strike at the end of January 1950, which rapidly turned into a broad opposition against the government's economic policies. Along with the rest of the cabinet, Alessandri resigned on 3 February, and returned to his role as president of the employers' confederation.
Senate and presidency
In 1956, the
In March 1958, he edged the united left candidate for the Presidency,
Alessandri initially focused, unsurprisingly, on economic issues, particularly on controlling inflation and balancing the state budget, and he liberalised Chile's tariff régime. However, he once again froze public sector pay, unleashing widespread industrial unrest.
In May 1960, a strong earthquake struck the densely populated area between Concepción and Puerto Montt, causing more than US$400 million in damage. Reconstruction and relief soon drowned out other issues. The earthquake effectively interrupted and ended Lota's coal miners march on Concepción as they were demanding higher salaries.[1]
In 1961, elections to Congress saw massive losses for the Conservatives and Liberals, with the Radicals, alone of the coalition parties, doing well. This forced Alessandri to nominate more Ministers from the Radical Party, which in turned moved his government to the left. This tied in with the more activist foreign development policy pursued by
Alessandri's period of office ended in 1964, and he was succeeded by his opponent of 1958, the Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei Montalva. Alessandri returned to managing his paper factory.
Public life after his government
On 3 November 1965, in the press published a letter, supported by 900 firms, where directed to Alessandri to analyze the general reality and highlight his public action, thus starting his second presidential candidacy. Publishing in the press in September 1968, a manifesto to the country -subscribed by Guillermo Feliú Cruz, historian; Hugo Galvez Gajardo, former Minister; Adolfo Silva Henríquez, farmer; Jaime Guzmán Errázuriz, university leader; Eduardo Boetsch G. H., engineer; and Jorge Delano Frederick, reporter requested adhesions to promote the presidential candidacy of Jorge Alessandri. Although Alessandri kept a low profile for most of the 1964-1970 period, he never explicitly ruled out a return to politics. On one occasion he said of the Chilean people: "I perceived, and necessarily, the rumor growing tide of discontent, despair and anxiety, inevitable product of just awakened but unsatisfied aspirations."
Allende's election and Pinochet's dictatorship
In 1970, following the end of Frei's period in office, Jorge Alessandri
According to Sergio Riesenberg Alessandri's appearance on TV backfired and cost him the election. On the TV program Decisión 70 directed by Gonzalo Bertrán there were two separate shots that showed him in bad light. In the first Alessandri said that he would be determined and that his "hands would not shake", subsequently the camera focused his hands that were actually shaking. In the second frame he was seen next to a stove warming his legs with a blanket despite being Spring. According to Riesenberg all this gave the public the impression of a man who was not longer "in an adequate age to become president".[2]
After the military coup of 11 September 1973 General
Final years
After this, Jorge Alessandri once more withdrew into private life, now for the last time, living rather peacefully in his apartment in the center of Santiago. He continued to be
His death had some influence in the attempted assassination of Augusto Pinochet by Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front as it made Pinochet travel back to Santiago prematurely changing thus the schedule of the attack.[3]
His nephew
See also
References
- ^ Reyes Herrera, Sonia E.; Rodríguez Torrent, Juan Carlos; Medina Hernández, Patricio (2014). "El sufrimiento colectivo de una ciudad minera en declinación. El caso de Lota, Chile". Horizontes Antropológicos (in Spanish). 20 (42).
- ^ Sergio Riesenberg: 'La derrota de Jorge Alessandri se debe a la televisión' (in Spanish). Cultura Verdadera. 13 December 2015.
- ^ Fuentes, Jorge (14 January 2013). "El atentado contra Pinochet que casi cambia la historia de Chile". Guioteca. Retrieved 7 October 2021.