Soledad Alvear

Soledad Alvear

María Soledad Alvear Valenzuela (born September 17, 1950 in Santiago de Chile ) is a Chilean lawyer and politician. She is currently the Senator of the Republic of Chile and Chair of the Christian Democratic Party of Chile . She was the first foreign minister of Chile and was selected for the candidacy for the presidential elections in Chile (2005/2006) .

biography

Soledad Alvear grew up in Puente Alto . Her father, Ernesto Alvear, was a sports official and one of the organizers of the 1962 World Cup . Soledad Alvear first attended the Liceo Nº1 de Niñas and then studied at the Faculty of Law of the Universidad de Chile . During her studies she was a member of the commission for the selection of professors for law. This started her political career after joining the Christian Democrats' youth organization at the age of 17. She graduated with honors in 1972, but soon returned to the university as a lecturer in civil law . Soledad Alvear has been married to Gutenberg Martínez since 1973 , as she is a lawyer and politician of the Christian Democrats.

Political career

On the occasion of the national referendum on the continuation of the Pinochet government , Soledad Alvear became involved in the Campaña del No in 1988 under the leadership of Patricio Aylwin . From 1991 to 1994 she was Minister of State in the Aylwin government and director of the newly founded Servicio Nacional de la Mujer (SERNAM). She then took over the Ministry of Justice, which she held until the end of 1999. Subsequently, in the second ballot, she was campaign manager for the campaign of the then head of the center-left alliance , Ricardo Lagos .

After the victory of Lagos over the candidate of the Alianza por Chile , Joaquín Lavín , she became the first woman Chilean foreign minister. She held the office for more than four years. Her greatest successes included the conclusion of free trade agreements with the United States , South Korea and the European Union , the dispatch of a peacekeeping mission to Haiti and the active role of Chile as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council , where she opposed an attack by the United States on Iraq was true.

Soledad Alvear gave up the post of foreign minister in September 2004 in order to be able to run as candidate of the Christian Democrats for the office of president. At the same time, Michelle Bachelet , then Secretary of Defense, resigned and ran for the PS - PPD - PRSD bloc . Alvear prevailed in the vote of party members in January 2005 as a candidate for the Christian Democrats. The center-left alliance had agreed to hold primary elections to find a common candidate. However, the large lead of Bachelet over Alvear in various polls, the entry of Sebastián Piñera into the election campaign and the low support from parts of their own party leadership led them to withdraw their candidacy on May 24, 2005 . This cleared the way for Michelle Bachelet, who was eventually elected president. In June 2005, Alvear declared her candidacy for the Chilean Senate for the Santiago- East constituency . In the 2005 parliamentary elections, it achieved the best result in the country with 43.6% of the vote.

As the leader of the “dissidents” at the top of the party, Alvear decided to run as a candidate for the leadership of the Partido Demócrata Christiano . On April 30, 2006 , she won the vote with 68% of the votes cast. Since May 8, 2006 , Soledad Alvear has been the first chairman of the Chilean Christian Democrats.

Web links

Commons : Soledad Alvear  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official website Soledad Alvears (Spanish)