The Citizen Left Party of Chile ( es, Partido Izquierda Ciudadana de Chile, IC), known until 2013 as Christian Left Party of Chile ( es, Partido Izquierda Cristiana de Chile, same acronym) was a

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...

left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in so ...

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...

. Founded in 1971, in its early days it was suppressed by the

Pinochet Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (, , , ; 25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean general who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, first as the leader of the Military Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981, being declared President of ...

dictatorship. It was part of the

Nueva Mayoría The ''Nueva Mayoría'', also dubbed in English as New Majority, was a Chilean centre-left electoral coalition from 2013 to 2018, composed mainly of centre-left political parties supporting the presidential candidacy of Michelle Bachelet in th ...

coalition, supporting the presidential candidacy president

Michelle Bachelet Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria (; born 29 September 1951) is a Chilean politician who served as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2018 to 2022. She previously served as President of Chile from 2006 to 2010 and 2014 to 20 ...

in 2013.

History

The Christian Left 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 The Christian left is a range of left-wing Christian political and social movements that largely embrace social justice principles and uphold a social doctrine or social gospel. Given the inherent diversity in international political thoug ...

positions within the Christian Democrat party. He was joined by six other MPs, Fernando Buzeta, Jaime Concha, Alberto Jaramillo, Luís Maira, Pedro Urra and Pedro Videla, as well as by

Silvia Alvarez Silvia () is a female given name of Latin origin, with a male equivalent Silvio and English-language cognate Sylvia. The name originates from the Latin word for forest, ''Silva'', and its meaning is "spirit of the wood"; the mythological god of ...

, 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 The Popular Unitary Action Movement or MAPU ( es, Movimiento de Acción Popular Unitario) was a small leftist political party in Chile. It was part of the Popular Unity coalition during the government of Salvador Allende. MAPU was repressed du ...

militants (incl. 3 senators: Julio Silva Solar, and Jacques Chonchol) who were dissatisfied with their party's affiliation with Marxism-Leninism. Christian Left was part of the

Unidad Popular Unidad Popular may refer to: * Popular Unity (Chile), a left-wing political alliance in Chile that supported Salvador Allende in 1970 * Popular Unity (Spain) Popular Unity ( es, Unidad Popular) was a political and electoral alliance in Spain. Th ...

coalition, and declared itself to be a revolutionary party of Christian and

Humanist Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "humani ...

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 Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of t ...

while others continued as the Christian Left party. In 2003, IC became a member of the

political alliance A political group is a group consisting of political parties or legislators of aligned ideologies. A technical group is similar to a political group, but with members of differing ideologies. International terms Equivalent terms are used diffe ...

"Together We Can Do More" (Spanish: ''

Juntos Podemos Más Juntos Podemos Más por Chile (Spanish literal: ''Together we can do more for Chile'', ''Podemos'' is an acronym of ''Po''der ''Demo''crático ''S''ocial, Spanish for ''Social Democratic Power'') was a political coalition created in 2003, consistin ...

''), together with the

Communist Party of Chile The Communist Party of Chile ( es, Partido Comunista de Chile, ) is a communist party in Chile. It was founded in 1912 as the Socialist Workers' Party () and adopted its current name in 1922. The party established a youth wing, the Communist Youth ...

and the Humanist Party. Their joint presidential candidate in 2005 was

Tomás Hirsch Tomás René Hirsch Goldschmidt (born 19 July 1956) is a leftist Chilean politician and businessman. He was the Together We Can Do More pact candidate for the 2005 Chilean presidential election, winning 5.4% of the vote. Biography Hirsch wa ...

of the Humanist Party. The second national congress of the Christian Left took place in 2006. The activists chose Manuel Jacques as the president of the Party. On 3 October 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 25 May 2008, when the Electoral Service (''Servicio Electoral'') of Chile re-registered it as a legal political party. In 2012 formed a party with other political leftist movements called Citizen Left. On the eve of the 2013 presidential election, the Citizen Left joined the opposition pact

and supported the presidential candidacy of

, formalizing its existence to change the legal name of the Christian Left in the Electoral Service. In 2018, Citizen Left merged with MAS Region to become MAS Citizen Left.

Presidential candidates

The following is a list of the presidential candidates supported by the Citizen Left. (Information gathered from th
Archive of Chilean Elections
. * 1988 plebiscite: "No" (won) *

1989 File:1989 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Cypress structure collapses as a result of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, killing motorists below; The proposal document for the World Wide Web is submitted; The Exxon Valdez oil tanker ru ...

Patricio Aylwin Patricio Aylwin Azócar (; 26 November 1918 – 19 April 2016) was a Chilean politician from the Christian Democratic Party, lawyer, author, professor and former senator. He was the first president of Chile after dictator Augusto Pinochet, ...

, PDC-''

Concertación The Concertación, officially the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia ( en, Coalition of Parties for Democracy), was a coalition of center-left political parties in Chile, founded in 1988. Presidential candidates under its banner won ...

'' (won) *

1993 File:1993 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The Oslo I Accord is signed in an attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict; The Russian White House is shelled during the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis; Czechoslovakia is peace ...

Eugenio Pizarro Eugenio Pizarro Poblete (born November 7, 1938, in San Antonio, Chile) is a Chilean Catholic priest, and politician. Pizarro was also a candidate for the presidency of Chile for the ''Movimiento de Izquierda Democrática Allendista'' that included ...

, Ind.-ADI (lost) *

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school s ...

Ricardo Lagos Ricardo Froilán Lagos Escobar (; born 2 March 1938) is a Chilean lawyer, economist and Social democracy, social-democratic politician who served as president of Chile from 2000 to 2006. During the 1980s he was a well-known opponent of the Mil ...

, PPD-Concertación (won) *

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; "Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris (dwarf planet), Er ...

, PH-''Juntos Podemos'' (lost) *

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

: Jorge Arrate, PCCh-''Juntos Podemos'' (lost) *

2013 File:2013 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: Edward Snowden becomes internationally famous for leaking classified NSA wiretapping information; Typhoon Haiyan kills over 6,000 in the Philippines and Southeast Asia; The Dhaka garment ...

, PS-''Nueva Mayoría'' (won) *

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...

: Alejandro Guillier, Ind.-''Nueva Mayoría'' (lost)

References

External links

Home page (in Spanish)
{{Authority control 1971 establishments in Chile 2018 disestablishments in Chile Catholicism and far-left politics Christian political parties Christian socialist organizations Defunct political parties in Chile Foro de São Paulo Left-wing politics in Chile Political parties disestablished in 2018 Political parties established in 1971 Socialist parties in Chile

History

Presidential candidates

See also

References

External links