Sebastián Piñera was a powerful businessman in Chile and twice president,
between 2010 and 2014 and 2018 and 2022, when he handed over power to Gabriel Boric.
He was born on December 1, 1949, in Santiago.
He was the son of Magdalena Echenique Rozas and José Piñera Carvallo, a member of the Christian Democratic Party, ambassador to Belgium (1965-1966) and then to the UN (1966-1970) during the government of President Eduardo Frei Montalva..
Brother of José Piñera Echeñique, Minister of Labor and Social Welfare and Mining during the government of Augusto Pinochet and independent candidate for the Presidency of the Republic, in 1993;
and Pablo Piñera, Undersecretary of the Treasury during the government of Patricio Aylwin.
He was married to Cecilia Morel Montes and
had four children
: Magdalena, Cecilia, Sebastián and Cristóbal.
Political career
Close to the Christian Democratic Party
, for the plebiscite of October 5, 1988, he made public his choice for NO, contrary to the permanence of Augusto Pinochet's military regime in power.
For the presidential elections of December 1989, he took over for a short period as campaign manager for the official presidential candidate, Hernán Büchi.
Also, he launched his campaign as an independent candidate for senator for the parliamentary elections of the same year, which he won.
After his election, he joined Renovación Nacional (RN) as a member.
The president of Chile Gabriel Boric greets those attending the National Congress after receiving the presidential sash from socialist senator Álvaro Elizalde (left), while former president Sebastián Piñera.
Photo EFE
In 1992, he presented his candidacy for the 1993 presidential elections representing RN.
In August of that same year, she had to decline her aspiration as a result of the leak to the public of a conversation about Evelyn Matthei, her party partner and internal adversary.
After this episode, known as “Piñeragate”, both declined their campaigns.
In March 2004, he left the presidency of his party, which he had assumed in 2001, with a view to the 2005 presidential elections. That last year, the National Council of RN once again elected him as a presidential candidate.
He ran in the presidential elections in December 2005, obtaining 25.41% of the votes.
Together with the official candidate, Michelle Bachellet (who achieved 45.96%), they prevailed over the other two candidates: Joaquín Lavín (with 23.23%) and Tomás Hirsch (with 5.40%).
As there was no absolute majority, the second round of elections took place on January 15, 2006.
On that occasion, she obtained 46.50% of the preferences, coming in second place after the Concertación candidate who obtained 53.50% of the votes,
being elected the first woman president of the Republic.
In the presidential elections of December 13, 2009, he ran as a candidate for the Coalition for Change (made up of the Independent Democratic Union, National Renewal and ChilePrimero parties), and obtained 44.05% of the votes.
He managed to prevail over the other three candidates: Jorge Arrate, with 6.21%, Marco Enríquez-Ominami, with 20.13%, and Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, with 29.60%.
As there was no absolute majority, on January 17, 2010, he faced a second round together with the official candidate, the senator and former president of the Republic, Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle.
On that occasion, he won with 51.60% of the votes over the Concertación candidate who achieved 48.39%.
After the electoral victory, on March 11, 2010 he assumed the presidency of Chile, which he held until March 11, 2014.
In March 2017, he launched his candidacy for the presidency of the Republic for the period 2018-2022.
In the primary elections of July 2, 2017, he defeated the candidate of Evolucion Política Felipe Kast and the independent Manuel José Ossandón.
In the presidential election of November 19, 2017, he obtained 2,418,540 votes, corresponding to 36.64% of the total valid votes, going to the second electoral round with the New Majority candidate Alejandro Guillier, who obtained 1,498. 040 votes, equivalent to 22.70% of the total valid votes.
In the second electoral round, held on December 17, 2017, in which a greater number of voters voted in relation to the first round, he was elected President of the Republic for the period 2018-2022.
He obtained 3,796,918 votes, which correspond to 54.57% of the total votes validly cast.
The Chilean president-elect, Michelle Bachelet, receives the presidential sash from the hands of the new president of the Senate, Isabel Allende (l), daughter of the late president Salvador Allende, together with former president Sebastián Piñera, in 2014. Photo EFE
Studies and business life
He completed his primary and secondary studies at the Verbo Divino School, between 1955 and 1964, in Santiago.
In 1965, he continued his instruction at the Saint Boniface school in Brussels.
Later, he returned to the Divine Word, from which he graduated in 1967. Subsequently,
he continued his university studies at the Faculty of Economics
of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile.
In 1971, he graduated as a
commercial engineer
and was awarded the Raúl Iver award for the best student in his class.
In 1973, he moved to the United States to continue his graduate studies in economics at Harvard University.
Three years later, he earned his doctorate with the thesis: "Economics of Education in Developing Countries. A Collection of Essays."
Between 1974 and 1976,
he was a consultant to the Inter-American Development Bank
(IDB).
At the same time, between 1975 and 1978, he was a consultant to the World Bank.
In 1976, he worked at the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) on the project “Poverty in Latin America” and directed a study on the national accounts of Bolivia commissioned by Richard Musgrave, a specialist in Public Finance.
The following year, he joined the Editorial Committee of the Economics Notebooks of the Economics Institute of the Catholic University.
In 1977, he began his career in the private sector
as a member of Ingeniería Financiera y Comercial Ltda
.
(Infinco), financial advisory and project evaluation company.
The following year, he expanded his business in the real estate market with Constructora Toltén.
In 1978, he assumed the general management of Banco de Talca, a position he left in 1980 after the entity's Board of Directors asked for his resignation.
Between 1980 and until 1987, he was president and general manager of Citicorp Chile, formed by Citibank and Banco Santiago.
In 1979 he created Bancard SA, a company that introduced Visa and MasterCard credit cards in Chile
and, through its Fincard SA division, was the largest issuer of credit cards in the country.
In 1994, it entered the airline business by purchasing 16% of the airline Lan Chile
(LAN Airlines since 2005) from the Scandinavian company SAS.
Subsequently, starting in 1997, he expanded his interests in the real estate field with Constructora Aconcagua and the Valle Escondido, Casa Grande, Las Bandurrias, Plaza Forestal, and Parque Industrial Curauma projects.
Michelle Bachelet where the president of Chile, Sebastián Piñera (i), is seen accompanied by his wife, Cecilia Morel (c), speaking with the elected president, Michelle Bachelet, in December 2013. Photo EFE
He also entered the telecommunications business through Entel SA and in 2005, bought the television channel ChileVisión.
In addition, he became a shareholder in the Blanco y Negro company,
controller of the Colo Colo Sports Club
;
in Azul Azul, controller of the
Universidad de Chile
Sports Club .
After making his pre-candidacy official for the 2009 presidential elections, he handed over the management of his participation in open corporations to four investment fund managers and third-party portfolios: Celfin, Larraín Vial, Moneda and Bice.
The presidencies
On March 11, 2010, he took office as President of the Republic,
after 20 years of governments of the Coalition of Parties for Democracy.
At the beginning of his administration, he had to face the effects of the earthquake and tsunami that affected the center and south of the country, on February 27, 2010, which left 525 dead and 23 missing.
To do this, he implemented a plan to rebuild housing and public infrastructure.
To face the effects of the earthquake and tsunami of February 2010, he presented a bill for processing in the National Congress to carry out the reconstruction of the country.
On August 5, 2010, the collapse of the San José mine, located in the Atacama Region, in the north of the country,
kept 33 miners trapped until October 13 of that year,
leading an unprecedented rescue by president and his Minister of Mining Laurence Golborne.
One year after the accident, a bill on mining institutions and safety was introduced, which created the Superintendency of Mining Superintendence and the Geological Service of Chile[9].
Sebastián Piñera and the then president of Argentina, Mauricio Macri in Brazil, in 2019. Photo EFE
Between July and October 2010, there was an escalation of the Mapuche conflict, starting a hunger strike by community members, who were prosecuted invoking the Anti-Terrorist Law.
The year 2011 was marked by social movements, among which is that of the Magallanes region, which demonstrated against the increase in the price of gas.
The student movement also expressed itself, demanding equitable access to higher education, the elimination of profit in universities and an increase in public spending on State universities.
Added to the above is the strike of Civil Registry and Identification officials, which began in August 2013.
On February 29, 2011, Law No. 20,502 was published, which created the Ministry of the Interior and Public Security, the Carabineros troops were increased by more than 8 thousand, measures that allowed the victimization rate to be reduced from 33.6%. up to 24.8%, ensuring that nearly 1.4 million people stopped being victims of crime.
Likewise, in October 2011, by Law No. 20,530, the Ministry of Social Development was created, renamed the Ministry of Social Development and Family in 2019.
From an economic point of view and throughout its period, the country experienced
an average annual growth of 5.3%, creating more than 1,000,000 new jobs
.
Likewise, he implemented a subsidy for the hiring of women, generating more than 576 thousand jobs during his term [17].
On March 11, 2018, before the National Congress, the Plenary Meeting met in Valparaíso, he assumed the presidency of the Republic for the period 2018-2022
from Michelle Bachelet
, to whom he had handed it over four years earlier.
On May 23, 2018, in order to eliminate inequalities and discrimination between men and women, it presented an Agenda for the Equality and Dignity of Women, which included a constitutional reform and the promotion of various bills.
In this first year of government, various social demonstrations were also held: by women against harassment and equal rights;
in Quintero, Puchuncaví and Ventanas, Fifth Region, due to the problems generated by environmental contamination in the area;
students, for the elimination of profit, debt and non-sexist education;
and the No+AFP movement.
As a consequence of the popular uprising of October 18, 2019, the government declared a state of constitutional exception in several regions of the country.
Based on these circumstances, political agreements were reached, materializing a constitutional itinerary to develop a new Constitution.
The process would begin with the October 2020 plebiscite.
On March 11, 2022, the presidency was handed over to Gabriel Boric.