Gabriel Gonzalez Videla (22 November 1898-22 August 1980) was President of Chile from 3 November 1946 to 3 November 1952, succeeding Juan Antonio Iribarren and preceding Carlos Ibanez del Campo. He was a member of the Radical Party of Chile.
Biography[]
Gabriel Gonzalez Videla was born in La Serena, Chile in 1898, the oldest in a family of eighteen children. During his law studies at the University of Chile, he joined the Radical Party of Chile's youth wing. When his father became paralyzed in 1922, he left university to help his family, and he became a member of the Radical Assembly of La Serena and protested against Luis Altamirano's military government. He was forced to go into hiding due to his opposition to Carlos Ibanez del Campo's government of 1927-1931, and he went on to serve as President of the Radical Party from 1931 to 1937. He served as a deputy during the 1930s, and he also served as a diplomat. In 1942, he mounted a presidential campaign following the death of President Pedro Aguirre Cerda, and he represented the left-wing of his party; he lost in the primary to Juan Antonio Rios. Videla went on to represent Chile at the first United Nations conference in San Francisco in 1945, and he also served as Senator from Tarapaca and Antofagasta. In 1946, he finally won his party primaries and won the election with the support of the Communist Party of Chile.
Presidency[]
Videla appointed communist ministers, but the start of the Cold War and internal troubles soon pushed Videla toward the right. The Soviet and American pressures on Chile led to the ban on the Communist Party in 1946, and the socialists grew aligned towards the US AFL-CIO labor federation. In 1948, Videla banned communist and all like-minded parties, and he broke relations with the USSR and Warsaw Pact countries. He then declared martial law to suppress communist unrest in the country, leading to Pablo Neruda and other prominent communists fleeing the country. Videla was now supported by the anti-communist liberal and conservative parties, and his presidency saw a strong political recovery of the right, as well as closer alignment towards the USA. Under Videla, social security was extended to more Chileans, and women were granted the right to vote in 1949. Although Videla's government emerged victorious in the 1949 elections, the Radicals and conservatives fell out over the conservatives' right-wing economic policies, and Radical support for anti-government protests led to the conservatives leaving the coalition. Videla therefore lost the pro-government majority in Congress, leaving him unable to do much but appoint the country's first female minister and ambassador, as well as creating the Office for Women. He left office in 1952, and he lost influence in his party as its views shifted to the left once more. Videla left his party in 1971 due to its support for Salvador Allende's socialist government, and he supported the 1973 Chilean coup d'etat. He died in 1980.