Jaime Jorge Guzmán Errázuriz (June 28, 1946 - April 1, 1991) was a Chilean lawyer and senator, member and ideological founder of the right-wing Independent Democrat Union party. He opposed President Salvador Allende and later became a close advisor to General Augusto Pinochet. A professor of Constitutional Law, he took an important part in the drafting of the 1980 Constitution. He was assassinated in 1991 by members of the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front, a left-wing paramilitary organization, during the transition to democracy.
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Jaime Guzmán was born in Santiago to Jorge Guzmán Reyes and Carmen Errázuriz Edwards, between 1951 and 1962 he studied in the Colegio de los Sagrados Corazones de Santiago, where at a young age he showed interest in literature and strong leadership qualities. Already during his senior year he begins to show interest in political life, an excellent student graduate from high school with the age of 15.
In 1963, being only 16 years old, he is accepted to study law at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (UC, formerly PUC) (Spanish: Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile), graduating in 1968 with honours. He was awarded the Monseñor Carlos Casanueva prize to the best student in his class.
During his university years he founded the Movimiento Gremial Universitario, political movement that in 1968 wins the presidency of the student union of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, maintaining an almost uninterreptuded leadership until today. The Movimiento Gremial quickly expanded through the main universities in Chile.
Jaime Guzmán was a professor of Constitutional Law and a right-wing politician that refused to recognize the legitimacy and constitutionality of the democratically elected Popular Unity government in 1970, and was the most prominent ideological opponent of president Salvador Allende.
Guzmán was central in creating the ideological and legal basis to support the overthrow of Salvador Allende. He publicly professed and defended on newspapers and television the view of the non-constitutionality of the socialist government of Allende.
After the military coup, Guzmán became a close advisor to Pinochet and a highly influential policy maker in Chile, including being summoned by Pinochet to take part in the Comisión Ortúzar charged with drafting a new constitution. He also had a key participation in the drafting of the Pinochet's Chacarillas speech of 1978, one of the founding text of the military regime [1].
Enjoying close contacts with Jorge Alessandri, he converted himself to the neoliberal economic policies supported by the Chicago Boys and eventually distanced himself from Alessandri, while getting closer to Pinochet and to his minister Sergio Fernández.
After having participated to the drafting of the 1980 Constitution, Guzmán distanced himself from active participation in the government and returned to his original political activities. He thus created in 1983 the Unión Demócrata Independiente from the movement started in the Catholic University of Chile.
Following the progressive return to democracy, Jaime Guzmán presented himself as candidate in the legislative elections. Despite reaching only the third place, behind important figures of the Concertación, Andrés Zaldívar and Ricardo Lagos, he was still elected due to the binomial electoral system. He posited himself as the leader of the opposition to the centre-left Concertación government leading the democratic transition.
Jaime Guzmán maintained until his death his functions as professor of constitutional law in the Faculty of Law of the Catholic University of Chile.
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