Jaime Jorge Guzmán Errázuriz (28 June 1946 – 1 April 1991) was a Chilean constitutional law professor, politician, and founding member of the conservative Independent Democratic Union party. In the 1960s, he strongly opposed the University Reform movement and became an active organizer of the Gremialist movement. Guzmán vehemently opposed President Salvador Allende and later became a trusted advisor of General Augusto Pinochet and his dictatorship. As a professor of Constitutional Law, Guzmán played a significant role in drafting the 1980 Chilean Constitution. He briefly served as a senator during the transition to democracy before being assassinated in 1991 by members of the communist urban guerrilla organization, the Manuel Rodríguez Patriotic Front (Autonomous).
Jaime Jorge Guzmán Errázuriz was born on 28 June 1946 in Santiago, into a traditional family of the Santiago upper class. His father, Jorge Guzmán Reyes, was a sports director at the Catholic University, and his mother, Carmen Errázuriz Edwards, was a travel agent and a descendant of two of Chile's most prominent families, the Errázuriz and the Edwards. He had two sisters, Rosario and María Isabel, and spent much of his childhood in the company of his maternal grandfather, the conservative senator Maximiano Errázuriz Valdés.
Guzmán did not have a close relationship with his mother, who constantly reproached his father for his bohemian lifestyle; Guzmán was much closer to his father. He attended the Colegio de los Sagrados Corazones from 1951 to 1962, where he was considered an outstanding student who assisted at school masses. From an early age he received a strong religious education; the priest and professor Osvaldo Lira had a marked influence on his development. During his school years Guzmán served as president of the Literary Academy and demonstrated strong leadership qualities, graduating from secondary school at the age of 15.
After completing his schooling in 1962, Guzmán traveled to Europe and was particularly captivated by Francoist Spain. In letters to his mother he expressed admiration for Francisco Franco, José Antonio Primo de Rivera, and the Francoist soldiers who died during the Spanish Civil War. Of Franco, he wrote: "Francisco Franco cannot be classified as a dictator, since his coming to power is more than legitimized by a people who rose up in arms for God, for Spain, and for Franco."
Guzmán had initially considered becoming a priest, and later a philosophy professor, but under pressure from his mother he enrolled to study law at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in 1963. He graduated in 1968 with the highest honors and was awarded the Monseñor Carlos Casanueva prize for being the best student in his class, as well as the prize of the Institute of Criminal Sciences.
According to writer Óscar Contardo, Guzmán was identified as gay within a portfolio held by the National Intelligence Directorate.
Support for Jorge Alessandri and early political activism
At the age of 12, Guzmán participated in the political campaign of Jorge Alessandri, distributing propaganda. Guzmán acknowledged that he had a "close ideological and personal proximity with Jorge Alessandri," and added that "he was the person who influenced me most in my interest for politics. His presidential candidacy in 1958 and his presidency, between my 12 and 18 years, made me admire him as a superior man." Guzmán later met Alessandri personally in 1967 and established a close friendship, visiting him on weekends at his country estate in Malloco. He subsequently collaborated in Alessandri's 1970 presidential campaign as leader of the Juventud Alessandrista Independiente, the youth wing of the Movimiento Independiente Alessandrista.
From 1964, Guzmán became a frequent contributor to the magazine Fiducia, a conservative, reactionary publication inspired by the work of Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira. This movement had emerged in 1962 and in 1967 transformed into the Sociedad Chilena de Defensa de la Tradición, Familia y Propiedad (TFP). From this platform Guzmán published his political ideas and joined Fiducia in rejecting the agrarian reform projects proposed by the government of Eduardo Frei Montalva.
University Reform opposition and founding of the Gremialist Movement
In 1966, Guzmán was elected vice-president of the Student Council of the Law Faculty, and in 1967 became its president. He was thrust into prominence during the occupation of the central building of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile on 11 August 1967, led by FEUC president Miguel Ángel Solar, who demanded the resignation of Rector Alfredo Silva Santiago and greater democratization of the university hierarchy. Guzmán led the resistance to the takeover, supporting the existing authority structure and criticizing the reformists for seeking to "politicize" the movement in favor of the Christian Democratic Party. Although he could not reverse the situation, he subsequently ran for the FEUC presidency, which allowed him to consolidate the Gremialist Movement throughout the entire university.
Guzmán founded the Movimiento Gremial in March 1967 in the School of Law, together with Hernán Larraín, Raúl Lecaros, Manuel Bezanilla, and others. In 1968, the movement won the presidency of the student union at the Catholic University and rapidly expanded to other major universities across Chile. The movement maintained almost uninterrupted leadership of the FEUC from 1969 to 1985. Guzmán defined Gremialismo as: "A current of thought that seeks to strengthen the autonomy of the intermediate bodies of the community — trade unions, guilds, business organizations, youth organizations, etc. — according to the principle of subsidiarity of the State, key to a truly free society."
Role during Chile's dictatorship (1973–1990)
After the 1973 military coup, Guzmán became a trusted advisor to General Augusto Pinochet and an influential policymaker in Chile. Just two days after the coup, Guzmán was tasked with studying the creation of a new constitution. On 26 September 1973, the Ortúzar Commission was formed to draft a new constitution; Guzmán was appointed as legal adviser by General Gustavo Leigh. The commission included Enrique Ortúzar (president), Alejandro Silva Bascuñán, Jorge Alessandri, Alicia Romo, Juan de Dios Carmona, Sergio Diez, and Guzmán himself, among others.
Within the commission, Guzmán became the principal architect of the new Constitution, intervening on matters including the subsidiary state, abortion, the death penalty, and human rights. The commission held 417 sessions in which articles were drafted and revised. Following the plebiscite of 11 September 1980, the Constitution was approved with 67% of the vote, though the legitimacy of this vote has been questioned given the absence of electoral rolls, the non-existence of political parties, the lack of press freedom, and the systematic persecution of political opponents. The new Constitution entered into force on 11 March 1981, with full effect from 11 March 1990.
He was also a key participant in the drafting of Pinochet's Chacarillas speech of 1977, one of the founding texts of the military regime. While he initially had close contacts with Jorge Alessandri and espoused his political views, Guzmán eventually converted to the neoliberal economic policies supported by the Chicago Boys and distanced himself from Alessandri. He became closer to Pinochet and his minister Sergio Fernández.
Although Guzmán never held an official position in Pinochet's military dictatorship, he remained one of the closest collaborators, playing an important ideological role. He participated in the design of important speeches for Pinochet and provided frequent political and doctrinal advice and consultation. From the Gremialist Movement, Guzmán founded in 1975 the Frente Juvenil de Unidad Nacional and, in 1983, the Independent Democratic Union (UDI), of which he was president from 1983 to 1987. There he established the bases of social conservatism, the defense of the military dictatorship, neoliberalism, and the strategy for winning support in popular sectors. Between 1983 and 1989 he was a member of the advisory commission drafting the Organic Constitutional Laws, and consistently rejected any reform to the Constitution, however minor.