Patricio Aylwin

Patricio Aylwin
32nd President of Chile
In office March 11, 1990 – March 11, 1994
Preceded by	Augusto Pinochet Ugarte
Succeeded by	Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle
President of the Senate of Chile
In office January 12, 1971 – May 22, 1972
Preceded by	Tomás Pablo Elorza
Succeeded by	José Ignacio Palma Vicuña
Senator of the Republic of Chile for the Sixth Provincial Grouping Curicó, Talca, Linares y Maule
In office 1965 – September 11, 1973
Personal details
Born	Patricio Aylwin Azócar November 26, 1918 Viña del Mar, Chile
Died	April 19, 2016 (aged 97) Santiago, Chile
Nationality	Chilean
Political party	Christian Democratic Party
Spouse(s)	Leonor Oyarzún Ivanovic
Children	Mariana Isabel Miguel José Antonio Juan Francisco
Alma mater	University of Chile
Occupation	Lawyer
Religion	Roman Catholicism
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Patricio Aylwin Azócar (Spanish pronunciation: [paˈtɾisjo ˈelwin aˈsokar]; November 26, 1918 – April 19, 2016) was a Chilean Christian Democrat politician, lawyer, author, professor and former senator. He was the first president of Chile after Pinochet, and his election marked the Chilean transition to democracy in 1990. Despite resistance from elements of the Chilean military and government after his election, Patricio Aylwin was staunch in his support for the Chilean Truth and Reconciliation Commission which exposed the Chilean government’s brutalities.^[1]

Early life

Aylwin, the eldest of the five children of Miguel Aylwin and Laura Azócar, was born in Viña del Mar. An excellent student, he enrolled in the Law School of the University of Chile where he became a lawyer, with the highest distinction, in 1943. He served as professor of administrative law, first at the University of Chile (1946–1967) and also at the School of Law of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (1952–1960). He was also professor of civic education and political economy at the National Institute (1946–1963).^[2]

He was married to Leonor Oyarzún Ivanovic. They had five children (his daughter Mariana worked as a minister in subsequent governments) and 14 grandchildren (among them, popular telenovela and film actress Paz Bascuñán).^[3]

Political career

Patricio Aylwin’s involvement in politics started in 1945, when he joined the Falange Nacional. Later he was elected president of the Falange in 1950 and 1951.^[4] When that party became the Christian Democrats, he served seven terms as its president between 1958 and 1989.

In 1965 he was elected to the National Congress as a Senator. In 1971, he became the president of the Senate. During the government of Popular Unity, headed by Salvador Allende, he was also the president of his party, and he led the democratic opposition to Allende within and without Congress.^[5] He is credited, to some degree, with trying to find a peaceful solution to the country’s political crisis. Nonetheless, in 1973, only a week before the Chilean coup of 1973, he signed a congressional act asking the military to "help reestablish the rule of law". This document, little noticed at the time, was later used as the main reason for the uprising of the normally apolitical Chilean military.

Aylwin was president of the Christian Democrats until 1976, and after the death of the natural leader of the party, Eduardo Frei Montalva, in 1982, he led his party during one of the most difficult eras in Chilean history. Later he helped establish the Constitutional Studies Group of 24 to reunite the country's democratic sectors against the dictatorship. In 1979 he served as a spokesman in the group that opposed the plebiscite that approved a new constitution.

In 1982 Aylwin was elected vice president of the Christian Democrats. He was among the first to advocate acceptance of the Constitution as a reality in order to facilitate the return to democracy. The opposition eventually met the legal standards imposed by the Pinochet regime and participated in the 1988 plebiscite.

In October 1988, Chileans voted in a presidential referendum to end General Pinochet's bid for 8 more years as president. Patricio Aylwin was at the center of the movement that defeated General Pinochet.^[6] After the plebiscite, he participated in negotiations that led the government and the opposition to agree on 54 constitutional reforms, thereby making possible a peaceful transition from 16 years of dictatorship to democracy.

Presidency

Aylwin in July 2011

Patricio Aylwin was elected president of the Republic on December 14, 1989.

Although Chile had officially become a democracy, the Chilean military remained highly powerful during the presidency of Aylwin, and the Constitution ensured the continued influence of Pinochet and his commanders, which prevented his government from achieving many of the goals it had set out to achieve, such as the restructuring of the Constitutional Court and the reduction of Pinochet's political power. His administration, however, initiated direct municipal elections, the first of which were held in June 1992. In spite of the severe limits imposed on Aylwin's government by the Constitution, over four years, it "altered power relations in its favor in the state, in civil society, and in political society."^[7]

The Aylwin Government did much to reduce poverty and inequality during its time in office. A tax reform was introduced in 1990 which boosted tax revenues by around 15% and enabled the Aylwin Government to increase government spending on social programs from 9.9% to 11.7% of GDP. By the end of the Aylwin government, unprecedented resources were being allocated to social programs, including an expanded public health programs, vocational and training programs for young Chileans, and a major public housing initiative.^[8]

A new Solidarity and Social Investment Fund was set up to direct aid towards poorer communities, and social spending (especially on health and education) increased by around one-third between 1989 and 1993. A new labor law was also enacted in 1990, which expanded trade union rights and collective bargaining^[9] while also improving severance pay for workers.^[10] The minimum wage was also increased,^[11] as were family allowances, pensions, and other benefits.^[12] Between 1990 and 1993, real wages grew by 4.6%, while the unemployment rate fell from 7.8% to 6.5%. Spending on education increased by 40% while spending on health increased by 54%.^[13] The incomes of poor Chileans increased by 20% in real terms (above the rate of inflation) under the Aylwin Government, while increases to the minimum wage meant that it was 36% higher in real terms in 1993 than in 1990. A slum clearance program was also initiated, with over 100,000 new homes built under the Aylwin Government, compared with 40,000 per annum under the Pinochet Government.^[14]

Under the Aylwin government, the numbers of Chileans living in poverty significantly decreased, with a United Nations report estimating that the percentage of the population living in poverty had fallen from around 40% of the population in 1989 to around 33% by 1993.^[9]

Life after the presidency

After leaving office in 1994, he continued his lifelong commitment to promoting justice. In 1995, he was the catalyst for a United Nations summit on poverty. He was president of the Corporation for Democracy and Justice, a non-profit organization he founded to develop approaches to eliminating poverty and to strengthen ethical values in politics.

Aylwin received honorary degrees from universities in Australia, Canada, Colombia, France, Italy, Japan, Portugal, Spain, and the United States, as well as seven Chilean universities. In 1997, the Council of Europe awarded the North-South Prize to Aylwin and Mary Robinson, former president of Ireland, for their contributions to fostering human rights, democracy, and cooperation between Europe and Latin America.^[15]

In 1998, he received the J. William Fulbright Prize for International Understanding. He died on April 19, 2016.^[1]

References

1. Kandell, Jonathan; Bonnefoy, Pascale (2016-04-19). "Patricio Aylwin, President Who Guided Chile to Democracy, Dies at 97". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-04-21.
2. "Reseña Biográfica Parlamentaria – Patricio Aylwin Azócar". Historia Política Legislativa del Congreso Nacional de Chile. May 20, 2009.
3. "Paz Bascuñán y su primer hijo: "Tenía mucha ilusión de verlo y conocerlo"". La Tercera. August 13, 2009.
4. Harris M. Lentz (2014). Heads of States and Governments Since 1945. Routledge. ISBN 9781134264902.
5. "Man in the News: Patricio Aylwin; A Moderate Leads Chile". The New York Times. Retrieved 21 April 2016.
6. "Patricio Aylwin, Chile's first post-Pinochet president, dies". BBC. Retrieved 21 April 2016.
7. Linz, Juan J. & Stepan, Alfred. Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation. Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.
8. Constructing democratic governance: South America in the 1990s by Jorge I. Domínguez and Abraham F. Lowenthal
9. A History of Chile, 1808–1994, by Simon Collier and William F. Sater
10. Victims of the Chilean Miracle: Workers and Neoliberalism in the Pinochet Era, 1973–2002, edited by Peter Winn
11. Safety nets, politics, and the poor: transitions to market economies by Carol Graham
12. Fast forward: Latin America on the edge of the 21st century by Scott B. MacDonald and Georges A. Fauriol
13. Development Challenges in the 1990s: Leading Policymakers Speak from Experience by Timothy Besley and Roberto Zagha
14. Nash, Nathaniel C. (April 4, 1993). "Chile Advances in a War on Poverty, And One Million Mouths Say 'Amen'". The New York Times.
15. "The North South Prize of Lisbon". North-South Centre. Council of Europe. Archived from the original on 2008-02-15. Retrieved 2008-01-21.

External links

• Official Biography in section Galería de Presidentes (President's Gallery) (Spanish)
• Biography by CIDOB (Spanish)