Patricio Aylwin Azocar (26 November 1918-19 April 2016) was President of Chile from 11 March 1990 to 11 March 1994, succeeding Augusto Pinochet and preceding Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle. He was a member of the Christian Democratic Party of Chile.
Biography[]
Patricio Aylwin Azocar was born in Vina del Mar, Chile on 26 November 1918, and he became a lawyer in 1943 and was a professor at the National Institute from 1946 to 1963. He served as President of the Christian Democratic Party of Chile seven times and became a Senator in 1965, becoming President of the Senate in 1971. He led the democratic opposition to Salvador Allende in the Congress before the 1973 Chilean coup d'etat, and he attempted to find a peaceful solution to the country's political crisis. Aylwin continued to lead the party during Augusto Pinochet's military dictatorship, and, in 1990, he became Chile's first democratically-elected President following Pinochet's downfall. He reduced poverty and inequality by boosting tax revenues and increasing government spending on social programs, and he decreased the number of Chileans living in poverty from 40% in 1989 to 33% in 1993. He retired in 1994, and he died in 2016.