Lagos Escobar, Ricardo (1938-…), a Chilean Socialist, served as president of Chile from 2000 to 2006. He was the country’s third president following the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte (see Pinochet Ugarte, Augusto ) from 1973 to 1988. As president, Lagos successfully managed the Chilean economy, maintained smooth relations with the armed forces, and introduced significant reforms to the 1980 Constitution imposed by Pinochet.
In 1973, Lagos was an aide to Salvador Allende Gossens, the first democratically elected Socialist president of Chile (see Allende Gossens, Salvador ). When Allende was ousted by Pinochet later that year, Lagos left Chile to live in the United States. In the mid-1970’s, Lagos was a visiting professor at the University of North Carolina. He later returned to Chile.
During the 1980’s, Lagos played a vital role in the struggle against the Pinochet government and the fight to reestablish democracy in Chile. In 1983, Lagos became president of the Democratic Alliance, a group of democratic parties opposed to the Pinochet regime. In September 1986, the police arrested Lagos, along with several other important political figures, but he was released three weeks later, following intense international demands for his freedom. In 1987, Lagos helped found the Party for Democracy (PPD) to oppose Pinochet and put pressure on the government for a return to democracy. Lagos achieved notoriety for directly challenging Pinochet in a fiery television speech. He was at the forefront of the people’s campaign that finally forced Pinochet to abandon power in 1988. The PPD later became part of the Coalition of Parties for Democracy (CPD), an alliance of leftist and centrist parties that has governed Chile since 1990.
From 1990 to 1994, Lagos served as Chile’s minister of education under President Patricio Aylwin Azocar. Lagos introduced several reforms aimed at raising educational and cultural standards and extending a school education to all Chile’s citizens. From 1994 to 1998, he served under President Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle as minister of public works. In this post, Lagos set up a new system of government partnerships with private companies for the construction of roads.
Ricardo Lagos Escobar was born in Santiago, Chile, on March 2, 1938. In 1960, he received a law degree from the University of Chile. He then went on to study economics at Duke University in North Carolina, where he earned a master’s degree in 1963 and a Ph.D. in 1966. Returning to Chile in the late 1960’s, he became a professor of economics at the University of Chile and the director of the Institute of Economics and School of Political Science and Administration. In 1972, he was appointed director general of the Latin-American Faculty of Social Sciences, a social sciences research organization operating throughout South America and the Caribbean.
See also Chile .
