Marco Enríquez-Ominami
Encyclopedia
Marco Antonio Enríquez-Ominami Gumucio (born June 12, 1973) is a Chile
an-French
filmmaker and politician. He was elected deputy
for District 10
in December 2005 as a member of the Socialist Party
, but changed his political affiliation to independent before running for President of the Republic
in the 2009 election
. Despite a relatively competitive independent campaign, on December 13, 2009, Enríquez-Ominami was eliminated in the first round of voting.
Enríquez-Ominami is the son of Revolutionary Left Movement
's historical leader Miguel Enríquez and sociologist Manuela Gumucio. His adoptive father is senator Carlos Ominami. Enríquez-Ominami is married to the Chilean TV hostess Karen Doggenweiler
, and has two children. Because of his long name he is frequently called MEO or ME-O both in writing and in speech.
, Chile to Miguel Enríquez Espinosa, the founder and secretary general of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), and Manuela Gumucio Rivas, daughter of Rafael Agustín Gumucio Vives, a former senator and founder of the Falange Nacional political party. He is of Spanish, German
and Scottish
descent by his father's side, also Bolivian
and Basque
from his mother's side.
In November 1973, two months after the military coup d'état
which ousted the government of President Salvador Allende
Enríquez-Ominami and his family were expelled from the country via a military decree, and barred from entering the country for the next ten years. His father, who stayed in the country to organize and lead an underground résistance against the Augusto Pinochet
dictatorship, was assassinated in October 1974 by DINA agents who uncovered his secret location in Santiago
.
Enríquez-Ominami and his family found refuge in France
, where he grew up speaking French as his first language. He completed his primary education at Lycée Victor Hugo in Paris
between 1981 and 1986. He then finished his secondary education at Colegio Alianza Francesa and Saint George's College
in Santiago.
in Paris.
From 1998 Enríquez-Ominami began working as executive director of Rivas y Rivas producing company. In 2002 after producing and directing several shorts, feature films, reports, television ads and television films, he directed the political documentary Chile, los héroes están fatigados ("Chile, the heroes are exhausted"), which was selected to open the 16th FIPA film festival in Biarritz
. The documentary was awarded at film festivals in Serbia and Montenegro
and San Diego, California
. In 2005 Enríquez-Ominami created and presided the ChileMedios Foundation, through which he developed several studies on local television audience behavior. He worked as professor of film production in Chilean and Peruvian universities and collaborated in political campaigns for Ricardo Lagos
and Carlos Ominami in Chile and also in Peru
and Mexico
.
for District 10
in central Chile for a period of four years. He obtained the highest vote in that district's history. As deputy he worked on the Science and Technology and Agricultural commissions, and presided the Investigating Commission on State-funded advertisement and the Special Commission on the study of the Chilean political regime. He has introduced around 150 bills, many of which have been approved.
In December 2008, Enríquez-Ominami said he was available to compete with José Miguel Insulza
and Eduardo Frei
in the Concertación presidential primaries. However, after claiming the Concertación leadership changed the primary rules in order to bar him from the process, Enríquez-Ominami decided to run as an independent. With the financial support of businessman Max Marambio
and media-mogul Rodrigo Danús, he began the process of collecting nearly 36,000 signatures needed to register his independent candidacy. He made extensive use of social networking Internet sites for this effect. In June 2009 he resigned from the Socialist Party
to meet the legal deadline.
Despite being relatively unknown, Enríquez-Ominami quickly rose in opinion polls, garnering 10% of support by April 2009, capturing the leftist electorate dissatisfied with the choice of Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei
as the Concertación candidate. For the parallel legislative elections
, he launched his own list of candidates, which was split between independent candidates (including three lawmakers seeking reelection) and members of two minor parties that supported his candidacy: the Humanist Party
and the Ecologist Party. He placed the strongest candidates in districts where Concertación party-leaders were vying for seats. However, though he made a strong showing, Enríquez-Ominami ultimately fell short and was eliminated in the first round of voting with 20.13% of the vote. His parliamentary list also failed to win any seats, obtaining a low 4% of the vote. After the election, he refused to endorse either candidate, saying "Eduardo Frei and Sebastián Piñera are too much alike [...] They don't represent hope, nor change, nor the future." On December 16, his economic advisor, Paul Fontaine, joined Piñera's runoff campaign. Nearly a week later another one of his economic advisors, Luis Eduardo Escobar, joined Frei's team. Finally, four days before the election Enríquez-Ominami held a press conference where he said he was going to vote for the "candidate of the 29%," meaning to vote for Frei, but maintaining his supporters were free to choose their own candidate.
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
an-French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
filmmaker and politician. He was elected deputy
Chamber of Deputies of Chile
The Chamber of Deputies of the Republic of Chile is the lower house of Chile's bicameral Congress. Its organisation and its powers and duties are defined in articles 42 to 59 of Chile's current constitution....
for District 10
Electoral division of Chile
To elect members of the Chamber of Deputies and of the Senate, Chile is divided into several electoral divisions, namely electoral districts and senatorial constituencies.-Electoral districts:...
in December 2005 as a member of the Socialist Party
Socialist Party of Chile
The Socialist Party of Chile is a political party, that is part of the center-left Coalition of Parties for Democracy coalition. Its historical leader was the late President of Chile Salvador Allende Gossens, who was deposed by General Pinochet in 1973...
, but changed his political affiliation to independent before running for President of the Republic
President of Chile
The President of the Republic of Chile is both the head of state and the head of government of the Republic of Chile. The President is responsible of the government and state administration...
in the 2009 election
Chilean presidential election, 2009
The Chilean presidential election of 2009 was held on Sunday December 13, 2009. Based on the two-round system, since none of the candidates secured the absolute majority needed to take the presidency outright, a run-off between the two most-voted candidates —center-right Sebastián Piñera and...
. Despite a relatively competitive independent campaign, on December 13, 2009, Enríquez-Ominami was eliminated in the first round of voting.
Enríquez-Ominami is the son of Revolutionary Left Movement
Revolutionary Left Movement
Revolutionary Left Movement may refer to:*Revolutionary Left Movement *Revolutionary Left Movement *Revolutionary Left Movement *Revolutionary Left Movement...
's historical leader Miguel Enríquez and sociologist Manuela Gumucio. His adoptive father is senator Carlos Ominami. Enríquez-Ominami is married to the Chilean TV hostess Karen Doggenweiler
Karen Doggenweiler
Karen Sylvia Doggenweiler Lapuente is a popular Chilean journalist and TV presenter.Doggenweiler is the daughter of Félix Doggenweiler Heim, of Swiss-German descent and Silvia Lapuente, of Spanish-Aragonese descent. She is married to the Chilean politician Marco Enríquez-Ominami. The marriage...
, and has two children. Because of his long name he is frequently called MEO or ME-O both in writing and in speech.
Early life
Enríquez-Ominami was born in SantiagoSantiago, Chile
Santiago , also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile, and the center of its largest conurbation . It is located in the country's central valley, at an elevation of above mean sea level...
, Chile to Miguel Enríquez Espinosa, the founder and secretary general of the Revolutionary Left Movement (MIR), and Manuela Gumucio Rivas, daughter of Rafael Agustín Gumucio Vives, a former senator and founder of the Falange Nacional political party. He is of Spanish, German
Germans
The Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe. The English term Germans has referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages....
and Scottish
Scottish people
The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...
descent by his father's side, also Bolivian
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
and Basque
Basque people
The Basques as an ethnic group, primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country , a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.The Basques are known in the...
from his mother's side.
In November 1973, two months after the military coup d'état
Coup d'état
A coup d'état state, literally: strike/blow of state)—also known as a coup, putsch, and overthrow—is the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government, usually by a small group of the existing state establishment—typically the military—to replace the deposed government with another body; either...
which ousted the government of President Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende
Salvador Allende Gossens was a Chilean physician and politician who is generally considered the first democratically elected Marxist to become president of a country in Latin America....
Enríquez-Ominami and his family were expelled from the country via a military decree, and barred from entering the country for the next ten years. His father, who stayed in the country to organize and lead an underground résistance against the Augusto Pinochet
Augusto Pinochet
Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, more commonly known as Augusto Pinochet , was a Chilean army general and dictator who assumed power in a coup d'état on 11 September 1973...
dictatorship, was assassinated in October 1974 by DINA agents who uncovered his secret location in Santiago
Santiago, Chile
Santiago , also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile, and the center of its largest conurbation . It is located in the country's central valley, at an elevation of above mean sea level...
.
Enríquez-Ominami and his family found refuge in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, where he grew up speaking French as his first language. He completed his primary education at Lycée Victor Hugo in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
between 1981 and 1986. He then finished his secondary education at Colegio Alianza Francesa and Saint George's College
Saint George's College
Saint George’s College, founded in 1936 and run by the Congregation of Holy Cross, is among the most exclusive and upper-class schools in Santiago, Chile...
in Santiago.
Film and television career
From 1990 to 1995 Enríquez-Ominami completed a bachelor's degree in Philosophy from the University of Chile, where he was vice president of his major's student board. In 1996 he attended an intensive workshop for film directors at La FémisLa Femis
La Fémis , is the French state film school. FEMIS is an acronym for Fondation Européenne pour les Métiers de l’Image et du Son. Based in Paris, it offers courses balanced between artistic research, professional development and technical training...
in Paris.
From 1998 Enríquez-Ominami began working as executive director of Rivas y Rivas producing company. In 2002 after producing and directing several shorts, feature films, reports, television ads and television films, he directed the political documentary Chile, los héroes están fatigados ("Chile, the heroes are exhausted"), which was selected to open the 16th FIPA film festival in Biarritz
Biarritz
Biarritz is a city which lies on the Bay of Biscay, on the Atlantic coast, in south-western France. It is a luxurious seaside town and is popular with tourists and surfers....
. The documentary was awarded at film festivals in Serbia and Montenegro
Serbia and Montenegro
Serbia and Montenegro was a country in southeastern Europe, formed from two former republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia : Serbia and Montenegro. Following the breakup of Yugoslavia, it was established in 1992 as a federation called the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia...
and San Diego, California
San Diego, California
San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round...
. In 2005 Enríquez-Ominami created and presided the ChileMedios Foundation, through which he developed several studies on local television audience behavior. He worked as professor of film production in Chilean and Peruvian universities and collaborated in political campaigns for Ricardo Lagos
Ricardo Lagos
Ricardo Froilán Lagos Escobar is a lawyer, economist and social democrat politician, who served as president of Chile from 2000 to 2006. He won the 1999-2000 presidential election by a narrow margin in a runoff over Independent Democrat Union candidate Joaquín Lavín...
and Carlos Ominami in Chile and also in Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
and Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
.
Political career
In December 2005 Enríquez-Ominami was elected deputyChamber of Deputies of Chile
The Chamber of Deputies of the Republic of Chile is the lower house of Chile's bicameral Congress. Its organisation and its powers and duties are defined in articles 42 to 59 of Chile's current constitution....
for District 10
Electoral division of Chile
To elect members of the Chamber of Deputies and of the Senate, Chile is divided into several electoral divisions, namely electoral districts and senatorial constituencies.-Electoral districts:...
in central Chile for a period of four years. He obtained the highest vote in that district's history. As deputy he worked on the Science and Technology and Agricultural commissions, and presided the Investigating Commission on State-funded advertisement and the Special Commission on the study of the Chilean political regime. He has introduced around 150 bills, many of which have been approved.
In December 2008, Enríquez-Ominami said he was available to compete with José Miguel Insulza
José Miguel Insulza
José Miguel Insulza Salinas is a Chilean politician and statesman. He is currently the Secretary General of the Organization of American States. He is nicknamed El Panzer, for his tank-like drive and reputation due to his ability to take political heat with little apparent damage...
and Eduardo Frei
Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle
Eduardo Alfredo Juan Bernardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle is a Chilean politician and civil engineer who was President of Chile from 1994 to 2000. He is currently Senator for Los Ríos and was President of the Senate from 2006 to 2008. He attempted a comeback as the candidate of the ruling Concertación...
in the Concertación presidential primaries. However, after claiming the Concertación leadership changed the primary rules in order to bar him from the process, Enríquez-Ominami decided to run as an independent. With the financial support of businessman Max Marambio
Max Marambio
Joel Max Marambio Rodríguez is a Chilean businessman and leftist politician from Santa Cruz. During the government of the Unidad Popular in Chile he was the chief bodyguard of Salvador Allende. After the 1973 Chilean coup d'etat that installed the Pinochet regime Max Marambio moved to Cuba. In Cuba...
and media-mogul Rodrigo Danús, he began the process of collecting nearly 36,000 signatures needed to register his independent candidacy. He made extensive use of social networking Internet sites for this effect. In June 2009 he resigned from the Socialist Party
Socialist Party of Chile
The Socialist Party of Chile is a political party, that is part of the center-left Coalition of Parties for Democracy coalition. Its historical leader was the late President of Chile Salvador Allende Gossens, who was deposed by General Pinochet in 1973...
to meet the legal deadline.
Despite being relatively unknown, Enríquez-Ominami quickly rose in opinion polls, garnering 10% of support by April 2009, capturing the leftist electorate dissatisfied with the choice of Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei
Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle
Eduardo Alfredo Juan Bernardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle is a Chilean politician and civil engineer who was President of Chile from 1994 to 2000. He is currently Senator for Los Ríos and was President of the Senate from 2006 to 2008. He attempted a comeback as the candidate of the ruling Concertación...
as the Concertación candidate. For the parallel legislative elections
Chilean parliamentary election, 2009
Parliamentary elections were held in Chile on December 13, 2009, in conjunction with the presidential election. The totality of seats in the Chamber of Deputies and 18 out of 38 seats in the Senate were up for election....
, he launched his own list of candidates, which was split between independent candidates (including three lawmakers seeking reelection) and members of two minor parties that supported his candidacy: the Humanist Party
Humanist Party (Chile)
The Humanist Party is a progressive left-wing political party in Chile, founded in 1984.In December 1990, Laura Rodríguez became the first elected representative of any Humanist Party in the world after winning a seat as part of the Concertación coalition, after Augusto Pinochet handed over...
and the Ecologist Party. He placed the strongest candidates in districts where Concertación party-leaders were vying for seats. However, though he made a strong showing, Enríquez-Ominami ultimately fell short and was eliminated in the first round of voting with 20.13% of the vote. His parliamentary list also failed to win any seats, obtaining a low 4% of the vote. After the election, he refused to endorse either candidate, saying "Eduardo Frei and Sebastián Piñera are too much alike [...] They don't represent hope, nor change, nor the future." On December 16, his economic advisor, Paul Fontaine, joined Piñera's runoff campaign. Nearly a week later another one of his economic advisors, Luis Eduardo Escobar, joined Frei's team. Finally, four days before the election Enríquez-Ominami held a press conference where he said he was going to vote for the "candidate of the 29%," meaning to vote for Frei, but maintaining his supporters were free to choose their own candidate.
Works
- Animales políticos. Dialogos filiales. Enríquez-Ominami, Marco; Ominami Pascual, Carlos. 2004. ISBN 9789562473330