Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle

Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle (born June 24, 1942 in Santiago de Chile ) is a Chilean politician of Swiss descent. He belongs to the Christian Democratic Party of Chile , was President of Chile from 1994 to 2000 and a candidate of the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia for the presidential election on December 13, 2009.

Eduardo Frei (1998)

Life

Frei was born the fourth of seven children to Eduardo Frei Montalva , who was president of his country from 1964 to 1970. His ancestors came from the Swiss Nesslau in the canton of St. Gallen . In addition to his Chilean citizenship, he also has Swiss citizenship. He completed studies as a hydraulic - engineering at the Universidad de Chile from then studied in Italy and worked from 1969 to 1988 in an engineering company.

In 1958 he joined the Christian Democratic Party of Chile, to which his father was a member, and supported its presidential election campaign in 1964. During the military dictatorship under Augusto Pinochet from September 11, 1973 , Frei was one of the founders of the opposition alliance that ran the referendum in 1988 and won it unexpected resignation of Pinochet and the transition of Chile to democratic conditions.

After the death of his father in 1982, Frei founded the political foundation Fundación Eduardo Frei Montalva and served as its chairman until 1993. He was elected to the Senate in the December 1989 congressional elections; In 1991 he became chairman of the Christian Democratic Party. In the primaries of 1993 he won the candidacy of the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia , a broad alliance of center-left parties, for the presidential elections with a clear majority .

In the presidential election of December 11, 1993 Frei received 57.9% of the vote; his conservative rival Arturo Alessandri Besa (whose uncle Jorge Alessandri was also a former Chilean president) lost with 24.3% of the vote. On March 11, 1994 Eduardo Frei was sworn in as the successor to Patricio Aylwin as president.

During his tenure, Frei continued the domestic politics of his predecessor and tried to find a balance between the hostile camps in the country. At the same time, the legal processing of human rights violations and crimes during the Pinochet dictatorship began. His economic policy focused on balancing the foreign trade balance and reducing inflation and the budget deficit .

In terms of foreign policy, Frei tried to gain international recognition of Chilean democratization and to integrate his country into international trade organizations, such as cooperation between Chile and the Mercosur states .

With the arrest of Pinochet in London in October 1998, the Chilean government was faced with the question of whether it would allow the extradition of Pinochet, who enjoyed extensive immunity as a senator for life in Chile . On the one hand, Eduardo Frei did not want to jeopardize Chile's efforts to achieve the rule of law, the legal reappraisal of the dictatorship in his own country and the reputation and integration of Chile into the Western community of states. On the other hand, he could not provoke the reactionary forces - especially the army and the powerful followers of Pinochet in Chile - too much. These threatened to put an end to efforts to return to democracy and the rule of law. Eduardo Frei ultimately refused - in line with the Chilean Congress - to extradite Pinochet to the Spanish and British judicial authorities and demanded that the ex-general return to Chile to be tried there.

2000 the term of office of Frei ended. The socialist Ricardo Lagos was elected President of Chile as his successor .

He then served as a senator for life under the Chilean constitution. After the Congress abolished the life-long senators in a constitutional reform, Frei ran again as senator. He was elected to Parliament on December 14, 2005 and President of the Senate on March 11, 2006. On March 12, 2008, Adolfo Zaldívar succeeded him in this office.

Frei was nominated by the Concertación for the presidential elections in Chile 2009/2010 because the popular president Michelle Bachelet was not allowed to run again according to the right to vote. In the first ballot on December 13, 2009, he came second out of four candidates. Since all four had missed an absolute majority, there was a runoff election on January 17, 2010 between Frei and the candidate of the conservative Coalición por el Cambio , Sebastián Piñera , which Piñera won.

Honors

• 1998: Collane of the Papal Order of Pius
• numerous honorary doctorates from international universities
• Commander of the Order of El Sol del Perú

See also

• History of Chile

Web links

Commons : Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ Announcement from the SEM : Reinstatement of Eduardo Frei
2. ↑ Tagblatt.ch: Nesslau keeps his fingers crossed for Eduardo Frei
3. ^ Tagesanzeiger.ch: Will a Swiss President of Chile?
4. ↑ Martin F. Meyer / Winfried Jung: Chile after the election victory of Sebastián Piñera. In: KAS country report. January 26, 2010, accessed January 15, 2012 . 
5. ↑ AAS 91 (1999), n.10, p. 1014.