Daniel Jadue
Óscar Daniel Jadue Jadue is a Chilean architect, sociologist and Marxist politician. A member of the Communist Party of Chile, Jadue served as Mayor of Recoleta since 2012 until his dismissal on July 22, 2024.
A Chilean of Palestinian Christian descent, Jadue originally became involved in politics as a Palestinian independence activist. From 1987 to 1991, Jadue served as president of General Union of Palestinian Students. During his career, Jadue has worked as a commercial architect, policy advisor, and scholar. After multiple unsuccessful attempts to achieve elected office, Jadue was elected to govern Recoleta, a commune in the Santiago Metropolitan Region, in 2012. In this capacity, he has presided over the creation of "people's pharmacies", a series of municipal-run drugstores to provide patients with affordable medication.
Jadue was a presidential candidate in the Apruebo Dignidad primaries, in which he lost the race against Gabriel Boric.
On June 3, 2024, Daniel Jadue entered preventive prison, ordered by Judge Paulina Moya Jiménez, after the lawsuit that businessman Álvaro Castro, owner of Best Quality Products SpA, presented against Archifarp and Jadue himself as Major of Recoleta Municipality, acussing of a millionaire debt on the sell of boxes of N95 surgical masks, gloves and thermometers to Archifarp in 2020.
Daniel Jadue was finally released from prison during the investigation after the Tercer Juzgado de Garantía revocked preventive prison on the grounds of recommendations by the Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, according to Judge Paula Brito, after 91 days in preventive prison. Jadue left Anexo Capitán Yáber on September 2, 2024 and entered house arrest, which will last for the remainder of the investigation.
Early life and education
Daniel Jadue was born in Recoleta, Santiago to small business owners Magaly del Carmen Jadue Jadue and Juan Fariz Jadue Jadue. He was estranged from his father, a supporter of Augusto Pinochet, for most of his life. Jadue is the grandson of Christian Palestinian immigrants who arrived in Chile during the first half of the last century. He is also a second-degree cousin of the Chilean soccer referee Sergio Jadue.He graduated from the University of Chile with degrees in sociology and architecture. He has a degree in total quality management from Catholic University of the North, a master's degree in urban planning, and a specialist degree in social housing, also from the University of Chile.
Private career
Jadue has specialized in community management for the last 15 years. He has a vast professional career linked to local development management and local governments. He has been project manager for community development plans and participatory regulatory plans in several Chilean communes. He has also carried out research on quality of life, gender, youth crime, employment and poverty in cities in Latin America and Europe. He has participated with presentations in international seminars on quality of life, gender, housing and social Comptroller's office. He was a professor at the Architecture and Urban Sociology Workshop at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of the University of Chile.In the architectural field, he was project manager in several public works such as the Municipality of Pichilemu, the Estación Central Cultural Center, the Pedro Aguirre Cerda House of Culture, the Fort of Purén Historical Park and the headquarters of the Union of Supervisors of Chuquicamata mine.
He was an advisor to the Chuquicamata unions on issues related to the process of transformation of Chuquicamata into an exclusive industrial zone and to some unions in the field of salmon farms in the Los Lagos Region in the preparation of their collective bargaining.
For more than five years, he was a panelist for the talk show El Termómetro on Chilevisión and participated in a political analysis program every Friday on Radio Nuevo Mundo. He is a frequent panelist for analysis of international politics on international television stations such as TeleSur, RT, HispanTV and NTN24. He is also a columnist for El Mostrador and Radio Cooperativa.
Early political career
His political career began within Palestinian organizations linked to the Palestine Liberation Organization during the 1980s. He was president of the General Union of Palestinian Students between 1987 and 1991 and general coordinator of the Palestinian Youth Organization of Latin America and the Caribbean between 1991 and 1993. He joined the Communist Party of Chile in 1993, a day after the signing of the Oslo I Accord. He was secretary of the Directorate of Communist Students and candidate for the University of Chile Student Federation in 1996.He unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2001 and 2005. He was also a twice-unsuccessful candidate for Mayor of Recoleta in 2004 and 2008. He is currently a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Chile.
Since 2003 he has been President of the La Chimba social and cultural development center in Recoleta, which has maintained, popular high schools, legal assistance, and a system of free professional operations for the neighborhood councils of the Recoleta commune since 2006. The La Chimba center also develops a constant work of popular education for democracy, the empowerment of social leaders and environmental sustainability.
Mayoralty of Recoleta
2012 election
In 2012, Jadue's candidacy for Mayor of Recoleta was supported by left-wing electoral coalition Por un Chile Justo. As a candidate for mayor, he committed himself to a "citizen and participatory local government program" adhering to the citizen initiative of VotaPrograma, a program that is currently under development thanks to the participation of more than 5000 neighbors who have participated in the PLADECO Community Development Plan.In the field of culture, he has distinguished itself for bringing Chile to the International World Of Music, Arts & Dance Festival, created by Peter Gabriel, and for the creation of the Popular School of Theater, among other policies aimed at massifying the cultural creation and cultural audience in the commune, through the Jazz and Theater Festivals in the neighborhoods.
He created the first "people's pharmacy" in the country, allowing drug prices to fall by 30% to 50%. More than 150 municipalities have adopted this system. He is gradually expanding the initiative by creating a "Popular Optical", a "Popular Real Estate", a "Popular Bookstore", a "Popular Record Shop" and an "Open University".
He ran for the municipal elections of Chile in 2016 to continue as the mayor of the Recoleta commune. He was reelected with more than 56% of the votes among five candidates and managed to integrate four communist councilors into the municipal council out of a total of eight. His term ended in December 2020.
Involvement in national politics
During the second round of the 2017 Chilean general election, Jadue joined fellow communist and federal deputy Camila Vallejo in endorsing centre-left candidate Alejandro Guillier. This was made in the face of accusations that Communist Party leaders were failing to participate in a united left-wing front against right-wing candidate Sebastián Piñera.2021 presidential candidacy
Announcement
In mid-2020, he stated that he was "absolutely available" to become a presidential candidate for the 2021 Chilean general election. He showed up as the leading candidate in various polls.By December 2020, the left-wing Broad Front coalition announced an alliance with Jadue, and he also had the backing of the Communist Party of Chile. Jadue's policies included "popular pharmacies" operated by local governments to provide low-cost medicine to citizens. He supports increasing the role of the government in the Chilean economy. This includes nationalizing Chile's pension system, copper, and water.
In April 2021, his presidential candidacy was formalized by the Communist Party after an announcement via Facebook.
Campaign team
Communist deputy Camila Vallejo, a former student leader during the 2011 student protests, was a member of Jadue's inner-circle in the 2021 election and was described as his campaign spokesperson. Observers have speculated that Vallejo's relative youth and large social media presence made her a key asset to Jadue, who sought to win the youth vote. It has been noted that major players in the "old guard" of the Communist Party, such as party president Guillermo Teillier, played a limited role in Jadue's campaign, leading some observers to argue they were sidelined in favor of younger party leaders.Policy advisors to Jadue include Ramón López, a Professor of Economics at the University of Chile. López has an extensive career as an economist and academic, having taught at the University of Maryland, College Park in the United States from 1990 to 2014. López previously served as an advisor at the World Bank and in 2017 advised the left-wing presidential campaign of Beatriz Sánchez. López stated that Jadue would pursue a social-democratic program if elected president, explaining he would govern in a manner "very similar to what many European countries did in the '70s and early '80s." López has additionally stated that Jadue rejects the land expropriation programs implemented associated with the "Soviet regime" and the "Allende model".