Joaquín Lavín

Joaquín José Lavín Infante (born 23 October 1953) is a Chilean politician and economist. He is a member of the Independent Democratic Union (UDI) party and former mayor of Santiago and Las Condes municipalities of capital Santiago. He ran for president twice in 1999 and 2005, losing both times.

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Lavín was born in Santiago and earned a master's degree in economics from the University of Chicago. He wrote a book, Una revolución silenciosa ("A Quiet Revolution"), in support of General Augusto Pinochet's economic policies. He was also political editor of the conservative Chilean daily El Mercurio. Afterwards, in 1992, Lavín was elected mayor of Las Condes, a stronghold of the right, with 31% of the vote and reelected in 1997 with 78% of the vote.

Lavín was the presidential candidate for the UDI-National Renewal coalition Alliance for Chile in the 1999 election. He eventually lost to PS/PPD candidate Ricardo Lagos in a runoff by 200,000 votes. Lavín again represented UDI in the 2005 presidential election, but ended in third place with 23.23% of the vote, due the presence of another right-wing candidate in the race, Sebastián Piñera, who made it to the runoff election with 25.41% of the vote.

Lavín is a devout Roman Catholic and also a supernumerary member of the Prealature of Opus Dei.

Lavín was narrowly defeated in his bid for a Senate seat in the general election held in December 2009, but on 10 February 2010, President-elect Sebastián Piñera named him Secretary of Education.[1]

In July 2011, President Piñera replaced Lavín as Minister of Education by Felipe Bulnes as a response to the months of student protest and appointed him as Minister of Social Development (2011-2013).

He is now Dean of the Business School of the Universidad del Desarrollo (UDD).