GABRIEL GONZÁLEZ VIDELA: BIOGRAPHY, GOVERNMENT AND WORKS - HISTORY - 2024

Gabriel González Videla was president of Chile during the period between November 4, 1946 and November 4, 1952. He graduated as a lawyer and exercised political activity in the ranks of the Chilean Radical Party. He held various positions during his long and fruitful political career.

These positions include those of senator during the period 1945-1953. He was also a deputy in the Chilean Congress for three consecutive periods, from 1930 to 1941. In addition, he became president of the Chamber of Deputies between January and July 1933.

He also served as Chilean ambassador to France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Portugal and Brazil during the government administrations of Presidents Pedro Aguirre Cerda and Juan Antonio Ríos Morales.

During his government he incorporated all the political currents of the time to the cabinet and governed with the communist left, the center and the right.

He stood out as a statesman committed to the development and sovereignty of Chile. At the end of his term, he decided to retire to private life, and in 1972 he resigned from the Radical party. He later served as a State Councilor during the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.

Biography

Gabriel González Videla was born in La Serena on November 22, 1898. He was the eldest of the eighteen children born to his parents, Gabriel González Castillo and Teresa Videla Zepeda, descendants of Spaniards from Murcia.

His childhood and youth were spent in his hometown, where he studied primary and secondary school. After graduating from high school, he moved to the capital, Santiago, to study at the Law School of the University of Chile. He alternated his university studies working for the newspaper El Sur in order to support himself.

At this time, he also began to work at the Central Statistics Office and took his first steps in politics, joining the Radical Youth. Then, in 1919, he became the private secretary of Carlos Dávila, director of the newspaper La Nación.

This activity allowed him to come into contact with the Chilean political class and relate to its most prominent figures. In 1920 he was enlisted in military service as a result of the curious War of Don Ladislao and two years later he obtained the title of lawyer. His memoir of degree was titled Chilean Statistics.

Because his father was paralyzed in that year, he had to take care of his family and returned to La Serena. There he opened a law firm where he practiced law until 1929. Three years before he married Rosa Markmann (Miti). The couple had three children: Silvia, Rosita and Gabriel.

Political career

In his hometown he continued with political activity. In 1926 his arrest was ordered as a result of a speech he made against the militarist government of President Carlos Ibañez del Campo.

He sought refuge in the La Serana Social Club, where he was sheltered until the Court of Appeals admitted an appeal for his protection.

In 1930 he ran as a candidate for deputy and won the elections. In 1932 he was elected president of the Radical Party. Then, in 1936, González Videla headed the Popular Front organized by the radical and left sectors. The front opposed the government of Arturo Alessandri Palma and faced it in the presidential elections of 1938.

Between 1931 and 1937 he was president of the Radical Party. During the government of Pedro Aguirre Cerda (1938-1941) he was Ambassador of Chile in France, later in Belgium, Luxembourg and Portugal.

Just in those years the Second World War broke out. During her stay in Europe she took the opportunity to take several courses in economics and sociology at the Sorbonne.

Presidential candidacy

In 1941 he ran his name as a presidential candidate for the Radical Party. However, he had to decline in favor of Juan Antonio Ríos Morales, who appointed him ambassador to Brazil, where he remained until 1945. That same year he was elected senator.

After the death of President Ríos in 1946, he again ran for president of the republic during the National Radical Convention. His candidacy was widely supported by the Democratic Alliance, which brought together radicals, communists and democrats.

He won the elections of September 4, 1946 to his opponent Eduardo Cruz-Coke. However, because it failed to obtain the necessary absolute majority, it had to be ratified by the National Congress.

The Liberal Party added their votes and thus he could be elected president of the republic by 136 votes in favor and 46 against, on October 24, 1946.

Other activities

González Videla led the Chilean delegation that attended the Congress of Democracies in America, held in Montevideo in March 1939.

There he was appointed as the first vice president of Congress. Parallel to political activity, he was president of the daily La Hora de Santiago and El Chileno de La Serena.

He was also president of the National Air Line (LAN Chile) and director of Floto y Compañía, among other mining and industrial companies in the nation.

Characteristics of his government

- The government of President Gabriel González Videla was characterized by its developmental character by promoting the industrialization of the country.

- It was at the same time a nationalist government that fought for national economic development and the exaltation of Chile's national values

- Initially it was a government with a broad political base, since the cabinet was made up of all the currents of thought and important parties in Chile. Among these were representatives of the Communist Party.

- It offered a great boost to college education.

- He sought the security and protection of the maritime sovereignty of Chile.

- It expanded democratic guarantees by enacting the 1949 Universal Suffrage Law for women in 1949, which equalized the political rights of women and men in the country.

- Violently repressed the protests of the miners and other sectors of national life, while breaking relations with the Soviet Union and the rest of the socialist countries of Eastern Europe.

- After obtaining the approval in Congress of the Law for the Defense of Democracy (Damn Law) in 1948, he proscribed the Communist Party.

- It was the last government of the Radical Party in the nation.

Plays

The main works and programs during the González Videla administration were:

- Creation in Antarctica of the Arturo Prat Naval Base and the Bernardo O'Higgins Military Base to protect the maritime rights of Chile.

- Signing of the Santiago Declaration, which proclaimed Chile's sovereignty over its 200-nautical-mile Exclusive Economic Zone. This declaration served as a frame of reference for other countries regarding the rights of the sea.

- Construction of the Concón Oil Refinery and the IANSA National Sugar Industry.

- Foundation of the State Technical University (USACH) for the training of professionals and technicians.

- Support for the productive activity of Coquimbo and tourist-productive activity of La Serena, which was converted into a tourist center.

- Boost to the program of the Corporation for the Promotion of Production (CORFO) created by its predecessor.

- Promotion of oil exploitation in Manantiales.

- Supported the Chilean mining industry by completing the steel plant of Compañía de Acero del Pacífico (CAP) located in Huachipato, Concepción. The construction of the Paipote smelter plant for the refining of gold and copper also began.

- Construction of the Sauzal, Abanico and Pilmaiquén hydroelectric plants, and the start of others, such as Los Molles, Pullinque and Cipreses.

- Support for labor legislation with the promotion of the Law of Pay for the Running Week and the Law of Inremovability of private employees.

- Establishment of ceilings on room rental fees.

References

1. Gabriel González Videla. Retrieved April 28, 2018 from uchile.cl
2. Government of Gabriel González Videla (1946-1952). Consulted of icarito.cl
3. Biography of Gabriel González Videla. Consulted of Buscabiografias.com
4. González Videla, Gabriel (1898 - 1980). Consulted of educarchile.cl
5. Gabriel González Videla. Consulted of es.wikipedia.org
6. Biographical Review Gabriel González Videla. Consulted of bcn.cl