Manuel José Ossandón

Manuel José Ossandón Irarrázabal, "Cote Ossandón" (born Viña del Mar, Región de Valparaíso, 24 August 1962) is an agricultural technician and a senator of Chile for the 8th Senatorial District. He was elected during the parliamentarian elections of 2013, for the period 2014-2022. Member of a Chilean center right party Renovación Nacional (RN), he renounced in July 2016...

Manuel José Ossandón is actually one of the four most popular candidates for the presidential election of Chile on 2017 and was the second most voted senator of Chile during the parliamentarian elections of 2013. In 2015 he was recognized as the most prolific senator of the country. He started in politics as mayor of Pirque's municipality from year 1992 to 2000 and mayor of Puente Alto from 2000 to 2012.

A self-described social Christian, Ossandón has been focused during all his years as a politician fighting for poverty reduction and for increasing the quality of life of Chileans. He is very well known as well for fighting against Chilean political corruption, social injustices and enterprise collusions.

Ossandón was born in Viña del Mar and raised in Pirque were he furtherly worked as a farmer and acknowledged the high rates of rural poverty and strong inequalities existing in his municipality and generally in Chile. In 1992 having 30 years he decided to run as Mayor of a rural municipality, Pirque, being elected with 21,86% of the votes and furtherly re-elected with 64,52% of the votes. Then, he decided to run as a candidate in the biggest municipality of Chile, Puente Alto where he was elected in 2000, with 45%, re-elected in 2004 with 60% of the votes and re-elected in 2008 with 70% of the votes. During his years as mayor, Ossandón enjoyed and increasing popularity and recognition during its mandates as a mayor and helped him to become one of the most voted senators of Chile.

Ossandón has built a reputation as a leading progressive voice on issues such as campaign finance reform, fighting political and business corruption. Actually, he's candidate to the primaries elections for the "Chile Vamos" coalition and the most popular candidate of the center right according to the CEP poll of 2016.

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