Eduardo Alfredo Juan Bernardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle (Spanish pronunciation: [eˈðwaɾðo alˈfɾeðo ˈxwam beɾˈnaɾðo ˈfɾej rwis ˈtaɣle]; born 24 June 1942) is a Chilean politician and civil engineer who served as president of Chile from 1994 to 2000. He was also a Senator, fulfilling the role of President of the Senate from 2006 to 2008. He attempted a comeback as the candidate of the ruling Concertación coalition for the 2009 presidential election, but was narrowly defeated. His father was Eduardo Frei Montalva, president of Chile from 1964 to 1970.
His presidency was marked by a consolidation of Chile's transition to democracy albeit the indictment and arrest of Augusto Pinochet in his last year of government heated up national politics. Economically, he oversaw a period of rapid economic growth that was only temporarily stunted by the 1997 Asian financial crisis.
In the 2020s he has taken political positions different from those of the Christian Democratic Party aligning more with the views of centrist and right-wing parties in the constitutional referendums of 2022 and 2023.
Frei was born in Santiago to Eduardo Frei Montalva and María Ruiz-Tagle Jiménez. He received all his schooling at the Luis Campino Institute. He then attended the University of Chile, where he graduated as a civil engineer, specializing in hydraulics. After graduation, he followed advanced courses in management in Italy.
Frei took his first steps in politics while at the university, where he was a student leader. In 1958, he joined the Christian Democrat party, and in 1964 participated actively in his father's successful presidential campaign. Between 1969 and 1988 he concentrated on his profession, as one of the partners of Sigdo Koppers S.A., the largest engineering company in Chile.
In 1988 Frei founded and promoted the Comité Pro Elecciones Libres ("Committee for the promotion of free elections"). In 1989, he was elected Senator for Santiago, obtaining the highest number of votes in the whole country. In the Senate, he presided over the Treasury and Budget Commission and was a member of the Housing Commission.
Frei participated as a pre-candidate in the primary elections held on 23 May 1993 among supporters and members of the parties that made up the Coalition of Parties for Democracy, prevailing with 60.7% of the votes and defeating socialist Ricardo Lagos, former minister of education and a staunch opponent of the military dictatorship, who obtained 39.2%. Frei was chosen as candidate for the presidency of the Republic.
In the presidential election of December 1993 six candidates ran, and Frei was elected with 57.98% of the votes (4,040,497, becoming the first to surpass the four million mark). The second-highest vote total was obtained by the centre-right Arturo Alessandri Besa – grandson of the two-time president Arturo Alessandri – (with 24.41% of the vote), the third by the economist José Piñera Echenique – who had been a minister of state under Pinochet – (with 6.18% of the vote), the fourth by the also economist Manfred Max-Neef (with 5.55% of the vote), the fifth by the priest Eugenio Pizarro Poblete (with 4.70% of the vote), and the sixth by the businessman Cristián Reitze Campos (with 1.17% of the vote). Although as of the date of the election (in December 1993) the 1980 Political Constitution established that the presidential term was eight years, once elected but before taking office, Constitutional Reform Law No. 19,295 was enacted (published on 4 March 1994, seven days before Frei took office), which changed the presidential term, reducing its duration to six years.
On 11 March 1994, he assumed the presidency, receiving the presidential sash from the president of the Senate, Gabriel Valdés Subercaseaux – who had been minister of foreign affairs throughout the government of Frei Montalva –, and succeeding his party colleague Patricio Aylwin.
Frei's presidency was notable in making improvements in health and education as well as reducing poverty.
Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle had particularly good relations with his Argentine counterpart Carlos Menem. During Frei's tenure the Laguna del Desierto territorial dispute with Argentina was solved, albeit the arbitrage favoured the Argentine position.
He was succeeded by Ricardo Lagos in 2000.
Following the end of his presidency, Frei assumed, as a former President, a seat as senator-for-life in Congress.
According to his first speech before the Plenary Congress, which took place on 21 May 1994, his administration aimed to fulfill six "Great National Tasks", which, in his view, the country had the "historic" opportunity to achieve. Broadly speaking these were: to consolidate economic development, continuing the path followed to achieve "development with equity"; to "overcome extreme forms of poverty"; to modernize labour relations; to build a modern educational system; to create an efficient and equitable health system; and to deepen Chile's "international integration".
In the first proposal, which would serve as the basis for achieving the next four, there stood out the inflexible fight against inflation, austerity and increased savings, high and sustained growth, increases in real wages, greater consumption by lower-income families, and deeper trade openness and levels of competitiveness.
The final task, meanwhile, rested on "uncompromising respect for international law", within what he called "a diplomacy for development". It also emphasized the deepening of the internationalization of the Chilean economy, through agreements and alliances; the country's participation in initiatives "aimed at achieving peace, the extension of democracy and respect for human rights, and the development of social equity in the international system", seeking a "multiple and balanced integration into the world".
Viewed from a strictly quantitative standpoint, his mandate fulfilled the goal of expanding the economy, particularly in the first four years of his term, a period in which the gross domestic product (GDP) advanced at average rates of 7.8%. In 1998, that situation changed abruptly, because GDP grew only 3.23% in 1996 pesos according to the so-called original series published by the Central Bank. The slowdown, brought about by the fall in exports as a consequence of the Asian financial crisis, was accentuated by a strong process of internal adjustment, with high interest rates.
As a result of this episode, the economy contracted by 0.76% in 1999. Four quarters of activity in the red had technically placed the country in its first recession since the beginning of the 1980s, in the midst of the military dictatorship.