Progressive Union of the Centrist Center
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The Progressive Union of the Centrist Center (Spanish: Unión del Centro Centro Progresista, UCCP) was a small center-right Chilean Party.
The party was founded by supermarket tycoon Francisco Javier Errázuriz to support his candidacy in the 1989 presidential elections. The charismatic Errázuriz emphasized that he was the only true centrist candidate, although his political ideology was slightly center-right. Errázuriz won 15.05% of the vote, but achieved little politically except to take votes from the right-wing candidate, Hernán Büchi.
The UCCP then joined the right-wing alliance Union for Progress (Unión por el Progreso, today the Alliance for Chile). Due to disagreements between the UCCP and the National Renewal, one of the members of the Union for Progress, the UCCP broke with the alliance on 1995 and presented their own candidate, Arturo Frei, for the 1999 presidential elections. Frei fared disastrously, gaining only 0.35% of the vote, the lowest percentage of any candidate since the end of the Pinochet régime.
On January 3, 2000, Senator Errázuriz retook control of the UCCP from Alejandro García and Agustín Benapres after they gave their support for Joaquín Lavín in the 2000 runoff election. Many accused Errázuriz of wanting to be in charge of the party when it had formally given its support to Lavín so that he would be rewarded with a post in the Lavín government.
Errázuriz, the only UCCP member of Parliament, soon saw himself embroiled in various court cases. His term ended on 2000 and he decided to end his career in politics due to the court cases against him, the investigation into some of his companies, and the fact that three of them were bankrupt. Without their leader, the UCCP ceased to exist.
[edit] External links
- "Declaration of Principles" (Spanish)
- Biography of Francisco Javier Errázuriz (Spanish)
