Andrés Zaldívar

José Andrés Rafael Zaldívar Larraín, (born March 18, 1936) popularly known as El Chico Zaldívar ("Short Zaldívar"), is a prominent Chilean Christian Democrat politician. Andrés Zaldívar is of Basque descent.

Zaldívar was born in Santiago, Chile. He attended primary and secondary school at the Instituto Alonso de Ercilla de Santiago, a member of the Congregación de los Hermanos Maristas. In 1959 Zaldívar graduated from the Universidad de Chile, having written the thesis ""Rental Laws, Commentaries and Jurisprudence".'

In 1952 Zaldívar began his political career by joining the Conservative Party. while attending university, he participated in the International Congress of Students in Chicago in 1956 representing Chile, as the Secretary of the Union of Federated Universities of Chile. In 1957 he joined the Christian Democrat Party, and served as Juvenile President for Santiago's Third District.

Zaldívar practiced law in the Municipality of Colina from 1959 to 1962, then became magistrate of the local police of La Cisterna.

In the government of Eduardo Frei, Zaldívar served as Undersecretary of Finance from 1964 to 1967. He became Minister of Finance in 1968 and Minister of both Finance and Economy, in 1970. From 1968 to 1970, Zaldívar served as governor of the Inter-American Development Bank and was representative to the Interamerican Committee of the Alliance for Progress in Washington from 1968 to 1969 and representative to the Economic and Social Committee in Caracas in 1970.

During the years of the Popular Unity coalition, Zaldívar served many different posts within the party: from 1970 to 1973 he was a national counselor of the Christian Democrats, in 1972 he became a member of the Political Committee, and from 1976 to 1982 he was the president of the Christian Democrats. As such, he became one of the main leaders of the opposition to the Pinochet military regime at that time.

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