Pedro Velásquez

Pedro Antonio Velásquez Seguel (5 August 1964–7 December 2023) is a Chilean politician who served as deputy. He also was mayor of Coquimbo from 1992 to 2006.

In 2023, he died of a cardiac arrest.

Early life and education Pedro Antonio Velásquez Seguel was born on August 5, 1964, in Ovalle, Chile. His parents were Ramón Velásquez Tabilo and Rosa Elvira Seguel. He was the sixth of thirteen siblings. He was married to Moira Navea Díaz, a social worker and former Regional Councillor of Coquimbo, with whom he had two children, Felipe and Rocío.

He completed his primary education at Methodist School No. 13 of Coquimbo and Aníbal Pinto School. He completed his secondary education at Liceo Comercial A-6 of Coquimbo, graduating in 1985 as a general accountant. He later studied law at the Universidad Bolivariana and was admitted to the bar on July 26, 2004.

Professional career Between 1983 and 1985, Velásquez served for three consecutive terms as president of the accounting specialty at his secondary school. In 1986, he was president of the youth organization of San Pedro Parish.

In professional terms, between 1986 and 1989 he worked as an accountant at Gildemeister in Coquimbo. Between 1989 and 1990, he worked at Francisco Henríquez e Hijos, and from 1990 to 1992 he worked as an accountant at Fundación Integra.

Political career Velásquez joined the Christian Democratic Party in 1987. Between 1987 and 1988, he served as president of the Christian Democratic Youth in the Coquimbo Region, and in 1989 he became regional president of the party. He also served as a delegate to the National Council of the party and as a party councillor.

In 1992, he was elected mayor of the Municipality of Coquimbo and was re-elected in the municipal elections of 1996, 2000, and 2004. During his tenure as mayor, he served as president of the Association of Port City Mayors of Chile between 1992 and 1995, president of the Regional Association of Municipalities in 2003, and president of the Association of Tourist Municipalities of Chile in 2005.

Between 1998 and 2000, he served as president of the municipal department of the Christian Democratic Party.

In 2005, legal proceedings were initiated against him for charges of fraud against the state and incompatible negotiation, leading to his suspension from office as mayor. As a result, he froze his party membership and formally resigned from the Christian Democratic Party in March 2006. In 2007, the Oral Criminal Court of La Serena found him guilty and imposed a permanent disqualification from holding the office of mayor.

In the 2009 parliamentary elections, Velásquez ran as an independent candidate for District No. 8, which included the communes of Coquimbo, Ovalle, and Río Hurtado. He was elected deputy with 25,919 votes, corresponding to 24.37 percent of the validly cast ballots.

In the 2013 parliamentary elections, he sought re-election as deputy for District No. 8, representing the Regionalist Party of Independents, obtaining 16,327 votes, equivalent to 15.23 percent of the valid votes, and was not elected.

In the parliamentary elections of November 19, 2017, he again appeared on the ballot as a candidate for the new 5th District of the Coquimbo Region, representing the Regionalist Green Coalition. He was elected deputy with 22,587 votes, corresponding to 9.74 percent of the validly cast ballots.

In the 2021 parliamentary elections, he ran for the Senate in the 5th Senatorial District of the Coquimbo Region as an independent candidate on the list of the Regionalist Independent Democratic Party, within the Chile Podemos Más coalition. He was not elected, obtaining 14,346 votes, equivalent to 5.89 percent of the valid votes.

Velásquez died in Santiago on December 7, 2023.