Christian Left (Chile)

Christian Left (Chile)
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Chile

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The Christian Left Party of Chile (Spanish: Partido Izquierda Cristiana de Chile) is a Chilean left-wing political party. Founded in 1971, in its early days it was suppressed by the Pinochet dictatorship. It is nowadays part of the Juntos PODEMOS Más alliance, that also includes the PCCh.

The Izquierda Cristiana party was founded when a number of Christian Democrats left their party in protest against the party's cooperation with the right-wing forces and confrontation with the Allende government. Thus, on 31 July 1971 Bosco Parra declared that he saw no future for christian left positions within the Christian Democrat party. He was joined by 6 other MPs, Fernando Buzeta, Jaime Concha, Alberto Jaramillo, Luís Maira, Pedro Urra and Pedro Videla, as well as by Silvia Alvarez, the only woman and Luís Badilla, the leader of the Christian Democratic youth organization. At this stage, the new organization was joined by a number of MAPU militants (incl. 3 senators: Julio Silva Solar, Alberto Jerez and Jacques Chonchol) who were dissatisfied with their party's affiliation with Marxism-Leninism.

The Christian Left Party was part of the Unidad Popular coalition, and declared itself to be a revolutionary party of Christian and Humanist tradition, and in favour of constructing socialism. It tended to agree with the radical wing of the Unidad Popular (the leftist majority of the Socialist Party and parts of the MAPU). After the 1973 coup, the party members were subject to arrest and torture, like people from other leftist groups. The party's militants continued operating together with and within left-wing groups. After democracy was restored in Chile in 1990, most of the militants joined the Socialist Party while others continued as the Chritian Left party.

It currently is a member of the political alliance "Together We Can Do More" (Spanish: Juntos Podemos Más). The second national congress of the Christian Left took part in 2006. The activists chose Manuel Jacques as the president of the Party.

On October 3, 2007, it started a process to re-enter the Political Party Registry (Spanish: Registro de Partidos Políticos), from which it was removed in 1989, for not having obtained enough votes to continue as a legal party. The process ended successfully on May 25, 2008, when the Electoral Service (Servicio Electoral) of Chile re-registered it as a legal political party.[1]

References

  1. ^ (Spanish): Servicio Electoral. Acoge solicitud de inscripción del partido Izquierda Cristiana de Chile, en formación, en el Registro de Partidos Políticos. Resolución Número 0-994. Santiago, 25 de junio de 2008. Diario Oficial Nº 39.098, June 27th, 2008

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