Arturo Olavarría

Arturo Olavarría Bravo (2 April 1900 – 12 January 1977) was a Chilean lawyer and politician, a member of the Radical Party.

He served as a deputy and as a minister of State during the governments of Presidents Pedro Aguirre Cerda and Carlos Ibáñez del Campo.

Family and education He was born in Curicó on 2 April 1900, the son of Armando Olavarría and Amelia Bravo. He completed his primary and secondary education at the Liceo de Aplicación in Santiago, and pursued higher studies at the University of Chile, graduating from its School of Law. He also studied law at the University of Quito in Ecuador. In 1923, he qualified as a lawyer and earned a doctorate in jurisprudence in that country; he took his professional oath in Chile on 24 December 1927.

He served as private secretary to Senator Arturo Alessandri for the province of Tarapacá in 1918. From 1920, once Alessandri had assumed the presidency of the Republic, he continued in that role until 1924.

Subsequently, he practiced his profession in civil and labor litigation. He was managing director of the Caja de Crédito Agrario until 1940, and president of the Agricultural Export Board.

He married Juana Gabler Merzdorf, with whom he had two children.

Political career In the 1924 parliamentary elections, he was elected as a deputy for Curicó for the 1924–1927 term; however, he was excluded from the Chamber by Deputy Manuel Rivas Vicuña, who took office on 24 June 1924. In any case, the National Congress of Chile was dissolved on 11 September 1924 by decree of a Government Junta established following a coup d'état on that date.

Later, in the 1932 parliamentary elections, he was again elected as a deputy, this time representing the Seventh Departmental Grouping (Santiago), 1st District, for the 1933–1937 term; he served on the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Colonization. During his parliamentary work, he authored several bills, including legislation establishing a state monopoly on pawn credit; the wheat law; the fertilizer law; the vinegar law; the founding of the Institute of Peasant Information, Regulatory Posts, and primary agricultural schools; and the law creating the Transport Corporation.

In 1931, he joined the Social Republican Party, serving as secretary of that organization during his year of affiliation. He resigned from the party in 1938 and joined the Radical Party (PR), where he served as Secretary General and as a member of the Radical Central Board in that same year. He was also a leader in the presidential campaign of the party’s candidate, Pedro Aguirre Cerda.

After Aguirre Cerda won the presidential election, Olavarría was appointed Minister of Agriculture on 24 December 1938, serving until 14 February 1940. During his tenure, he focused on establishing cooperatives for small farmers; as a result of his efforts, Law No. 6,382 was approved, creating the Small Farmers’ Cooperatives, promulgated on 9 August 1939. The law was drafted by Olavarría himself, with the broad approval of the President of the Republic.

Under the same administration, he was appointed acting Minister of Development between 21 and 23 March 1939, and later served as Minister of the Interior between 23 December 1940 and 16 September 1941. Due to his anti-communist stance, Olavarría harshly repressed workers' strikes during his time as minister, threatening to evict peasants who refused to work and to carry out summary executions of striking railway workers—measures he referred to as the “final judgment system”.

When Radical President Gabriel González Videla won the 1946 presidential election and incorporated the Communist Party into his cabinet, Olavarría founded the Chilean Anti-Communist Action (ACHA). At the same time, he resigned from the Radical Party and joined the Radical Democratic Party, a party belonging to the right-wing sector of Chilean Radicalism, serving as its Vice president. When that party dissolved, he became an independent.

Subsequently, on 3 November 1952, President Carlos Ibáñez del Campo appointed him Minister of Foreign Affairs, a position he held until 1 April 1953. He also again served as acting Minister of the Interior between 25 and 28 February 1953, and later as full Minister of the Interior from 17 November 1954 until 6 January 1955.

He was awarded the Order of the Liberator of the Republic of Venezuela. He died on 12 January 1977.