Jorge Prat

Jorge Prat Echaurren (24 April 1918 – 20 December 1971) was a Chilean nationalist politician.

Prat was born in Santiago, Chile. A veteran of the nationalist political scene, he was first associated with the National Socialist Movement of Chile or Nacis, albeit as a low level member. During the late 1940s he led his own group, the Estanqueros, based around corporatism and strong support for the regimes of Francisco Franco and António de Oliveira Salazar as well as militant anti-communism. It sought the creation of a highly disciplined hierarchy in society and government with a strong charismatic leader and an elite rulering class in an ideology that Prat called current portalismo after Diego Portales.^[1] His movement published its own weekly newspaper, Estanquero, between 1949 and 1954.^[2] Later the Estanqueros would be subsumed into the Chilean Anti-Communist Action a more militant group associated with rightist former President Carlos Ibáñez del Campo.^[1]

Prat would himself become associated with Ibáñez and served as Minister of Finance in his second government from 1954 to 1955. As Minister Prat endorsed an austerity programme with higher taxes and the suspension of the right to strike, leading to severe opposition from the National Congress of Chile.^[3] His governmental career ended soon after this.

Prat then attempted to run for President of Chile in the 1964 election and to this end formed his own party, the National Action Party, with Sergio Onofre Jarpa in 1963. Prat's campaign did not prove a success however and he withdrew his candidacy before the election.^[4] It has since been suggested that United States intelligence services encouraged political leaders to pressure Prat into abandoning his candidacy in case his presence in the election split the vote and allowed Salvador Allende to be elected.^[5] He merged his party with various other groups to form the National Party in 1966. He died in Curacaví.

References