page_title: Jorge Arrate
section_title: Political activity
hierarchical_section_title: Jorge Arrate / Political activity
caption_attribution_description: English: Politic graffiti of a candidate to president of Chile Jorge Arrate Mac Niven in 2009. Español: Rayado político para el candidato a presidente de Chile Jorge Arrate Mac Niven hecho por la Brigada Bohemios en La Florida en la elección de 2009.
context_page_description: Jorge Félix Arrate Mac Niven is a Chilean lawyer, economist, writer and politician. He was the Minister of State for the Chilean presidents Salvador Allende, Patricio Aylwin, and Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle. In 2009, he was appointed as candidate for president of Chile in representation of the political alliance Juntos Podemos Más and other leftist political movements, obtaining 6.21 percent of the total votes in the elections of that year.
context_section_description: Jorge Arrate started his political career in 1957, serving secretary-general of the Federation of Secondary Students of Santiago.
  In 1961 he was president of the Center of Students of the School of Law of the University of Chile and in 1963 he ran for the presidency of the Student Federation of Chile, with the support of the Communist and Socialist parties. In 1963 he joined the Socialist Party of Chile and in early 1971 he was appointed by the Central Committee of the Socialist Party as leader of the Socialist Professionals and Technicians.
  During his first two years of exile, he was the executive secretary of the group "Chilean Left Abroad" and "Chile Democratic"  and international office coordinator of solidarity with the Chilean democracy, based in Rome. Between 1975 and 1977 he was the secretary of International Relations of the Socialist Party of Chile, headquartered in East Berlin. He was a member of the Central Committee for the first time in 1978 and continued as a member of that body for twenty years.
  In 1984, he tried to enter Chile against the will of the military regime three times and was rejected at the airport of Santiago and sent to Buenos Aires and Bogota. In 1987 he managed to legally enter the country and join local political work. On his return he assumed the task entrusted by the Socialist leadership headed by Ricardo Nunez, of promoting socialist reunification with the sector led by Clodomiro Almeyda. In 1989 he was elected in the first election by universal suffrage by a political party in Chile, as general secretary (at that time head of the organization) of the Socialist Party of Chile.
  As head of his party, he ended its mission in the act of unification held on 29 December 1989. Subsequently, the "Congress of Unity Salvador Allende" held later that year in Valparaiso was designated President Socialist Party of Chile.
  When the party still exercised presidency, Arrate was proclaimed by the Socialist Party for mayor of Santiago in the first democratic municipal elections after the military dictatorship, in which was elected Jaime Ravinet, his partner in the list by the Christian Democratic Party of Chile. In 2005, he accepted the nomination as a candidate for senator from the Coquimbo Region, in which the Socialist Party of Chile had not elect anyone to the Senate since 1973. Arrate lost the election,being chosen his running mate Jorge Pizarro and the conservative candidate, Evelyn Matthei.
  In 2007, he proposed to end the cycle of the ruling [Concertación], and face a new political cycle with a new coalition. In early 2008 several hundred members of his party asked him to declare his availability for a presidential candidacy with a new political coalition of the political left. Arrate accepted this challenge, focusing its efforts on the "reconstruction of a political project that proposes sweeping political and social changes in Chilean society", change the economic model and put an end to the "democracy exclusive that exists today".
  On January 14 of 2009, he presented his resignation to the Socialist Party of Chile,to addressing the 2009 elections supported by socialist factions outside the coalition government. These officially proclaimed him four days later.
  Its official proclamation as candidate of the covenant Juntos Podemos took place in a national assembly of the political left on April 25, a day in overtook the leader communist Guillermo Teillier, removed the evening of the election, and Tomás Hirsch Humanist Party candidate.
  In July he lost the support of Humanist Party, who accused him of excessive approach to candidate Concertación, Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle. The Humanist Party of Chile then went on to support the former socialist Marco Enríquez-Ominami.
  Days later, Arrate joins the Communist Party of Chile for the sole purpose of complying with the electoral law.
  On December 13 in first round Arrate got 6.21% of votes, surpassed by the 20.13% of Marco Enriquez-Ominami, the 29.60% of Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle and 44.05% of the conservative business magnate Sebastián Piñera.
  Days later he ga
caption: Street propaganda for the presidential campaign in 2009
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