Fernando Flores - Politics

Politics

Flores was Finance Minister of president Salvador Allende in the early 1970s, after the coup d'état he was imprisoned, subjected to prolonged, systematic psychological torture and later driven to exile by the military regime of Augusto Pinochet.

In 2001 Flores was elected senator for the Tarapacá Region, as a member of the center-left Party for Democracy (PPD), a constituent party of the governing coalition Concertación.

In late 2004 Flores was unsuccessful in becoming the PPD's candidate for President of Chile and he later supported the candidacy of Michelle Bachelet.

In 2006 Flores ran for the presidency of the PPD party, but lost to Sergio Bitar. Later that year, with the possibility of being a presidential candidate slipping away, he began to move away from his center-left party. On January 8, 2007, he inaugurated a new political project called ChileFirst. The next day he submitted his resignation to the PPD. He is currently an independent Senator who caucuses with the center-right Alliance for Chile (a coalition of 2 right wing parties). He drew sharp criticism from his former political allies for supporting Sebastián Piñera's presidential candidacy. He did not seek re-election in December 2009 and ChileFirst won no seats in Congress in the election. Until March 2010 he remained as an independent senator. On March 31, 2010 he was designated President of Chile's National Innovation Council for Competitiveness by President Piñera.