Sebastián Piñera

Biography

Sebastián Piñera was born in Santiago in 1949, the son of a Christian Democratic diplomat. He studied commercial engineering at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and earned a PhD in economics at Harvard, then lectured in economics at Chilean universities until 1988. He built a large fortune, notably by introducing credit cards to Chile and through stakes in LAN Airlines and the Chilevisión television channel; his business career also brought legal controversy, including a 1982 arrest warrant over the Banco de Talca.

A member of National Renewal, he was senator for East Santiago from 1990 to 1998 and led the party from 2001 to 2004. He lost the 2005-06 presidential election to Michelle Bachelet but won in 2010, the first right-wing president elected since 1958. His first term included reconstruction after the 2010 earthquake, the rescue of 33 trapped miners and large student protests.

He won a second term in 2017. His second government faced the mass protests of 2019-2020, handled the COVID-19 pandemic and saw same-sex marriage legalised, and he survived an impeachment attempt in 2021 over revelations in the Pandora Papers. He died in February 2024 when the helicopter he was piloting crashed into Lake Ranco.