Sebastián Piñera, a former president of Chile who helped strengthen the nation’s younger democracy after turning into its first conservative chief since a army dictatorship, died in a helicopter crash in Chile on Tuesday, the federal government mentioned. He was 74.
The helicopter, carrying 4 folks, crashed into Lake Ranco within the Los Ríos area in southern Chile about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, shortly after taking off, the federal government mentioned. Three folks survived and swam to shore, and the Chilean Navy recovered Mr. Piñera’s physique. It’s unclear who was piloting the plane, however Mr. Piñera was identified to fly his personal helicopter.
Mr. Piñera was a billionaire businessman and investor who served two phrases as Chile’s president, from 2010 to 2014 and from 2018 to 2022.
A conservative, Mr. Piñera ushered in pro-business insurance policies that helped enhance progress and make the nation of 19 million, in his phrases, “a true oasis” in Latin America.
However he additionally confronted enormous protests from residents who mentioned his authorities disregarded the poor — Chile is likely one of the world’s most economically unequal nations — and he left workplace each instances with low approval rankings.
“President Piñera contributed, from his perspective, to build broad agreements for the good of the nation,” President Gabriel Boric of Chile mentioned in a televised handle on Tuesday. “He was a democrat from the very beginning and genuinely sought what he believed was best for the country.” Mr. Boric introduced three days of nationwide mourning.
Maybe Mr. Piñera’s most vital legacy was serving to Chile’s conservative motion win energy for the primary time for the reason that finish of Chile’s brutal army dictatorship beneath Gen. Augusto Pinochet in 1990.
After 20 years of leftist rule following the dictatorship, his first election, in 2010, confirmed that Chile’s democracy was sturdy and wholesome, mentioned Robert Funk, a political science professor on the College of Chile.
“He did that basically on his own,” Mr. Funk mentioned. “He pushed the parties on the right to participate and accept the rules of the game at a time when they were not so convinced.”
Mr. Piñera is survived by his spouse, Cecilia Morel, whom he married in 1973, and their 4 youngsters.
Mr. Piñera made his first fortune by introducing bank cards to Chile throughout the dictatorship within the early Eighties. He later used these funds to put money into an unlimited array of corporations, together with in actual property, banking, vitality and mining. He owned a tv broadcaster together with main shares of an airline and an expert soccer membership.
He then used his wealth to enter politics, first as a senator and later as president.
Mr. Piñera steered Chile by means of a few of its most tough moments lately. Weeks after he was elected in 2010, a strong earthquake and tsunami killed 525 folks within the nation and displaced an extra 1.5 million.
Later that yr, Mr. Piñera staked his presidency on rescuing 33 miners who had been trapped almost a half-mile underground. His authorities’s elaborate plan — drilling a slender gap and decreasing a custom-made capsule — was profitable, and Mr. Piñera embraced and celebrated with the boys as they had been lifted to freedom one after the other after 68 days underground.
In his second time period, Mr. Piñera oversaw his authorities’s extensively praised response to the pandemic, as he secured a big inventory of vaccines from China and rolled out an environment friendly vaccination program.
His authorities additionally confronted mass protests in 2019 that started over a small hike in subway fares however ultimately ballooned into broad complaints over inequality.
Mr. Piñera used the army to quell the protests, and later clashes between the police and demonstrators left greater than 30 civilians lifeless and 460 others blinded or with severe eye trauma from rubber bullets.
Finally, Mr. Piñera acquiesced to calls for for a nationwide referendum on whether or not to scrap Chile’s Structure, which had roots within the dictatorship. Chileans voted overwhelmingly to draft a brand new constitution, however final December, after 4 years and two failed constitutional plebiscites, the nation selected to reside, for now, with the current text.
Mr. Piñera was an environment friendly and expert supervisor, who basically oversaw a broad enchancment in Chileans’ high quality of life, Mr. Funk mentioned, however he additionally typically failed as a politician and communicator, notably in understanding poorer folks’s issues.
“He governed through an Excel spreadsheet,” Mr. Funk mentioned. “He said we’re doing well on this box, on this box. But his failure was that he didn’t have a sense of the politics beneath that, of people’s frustration, of how his governments would really rub people the wrong way.”
Mr. Piñera additionally confronted scandals. He went into hiding briefly within the Eighties when the authorities sought to arrest him for fraudulent lending at a financial institution the place he was an government. He was by no means convicted.
When he transitioned from enterprise to politics, he was criticized for conflicts of curiosity between his investments and his positions in public workplace.
As president, he was ultimately compelled to have his property managed by blind trusts. But, it was later revealed that he had moved a lot of his wealth to tax havens in Luxembourg and the British Virgin Islands, mentioned Sergio Jara, the creator of a e-book on Chilean enterprise leaders, together with Mr. Piñera.
“He was a voracious and diverse investor, owning minority shares in over 100 companies,” Mr. Jara mentioned. “This allowed him to build one of Chile’s greatest fortunes.”
John Bartlett contributed reporting from Valdivia, Chile.
