Marcelo Schilling

Schilling was born on May 18, 1949, in Temuco, Chile. He is the son of Nicanor Schilling Rosas and Lucía Rodríguez Prado. He is married to Loreto Morras Oyanedel and is the father of one son, Miguel Enrique.^[5]

Between 1955 and 1960, he completed his primary education at the Escuela Centralizada de Lanco and his secondary education at Colegio La Salle in Temuco. He later enrolled in Public Administration at the School of Political and Administrative Sciences of the Faculty of Law and Social Sciences at the University of Chile, withdrawing from the program in 1971.^[5]

In 1977, he studied Economics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, where he remained for one year. In 1983, he began a Master’s program in Public Administration at the Center for Economic Research and Teaching in Mexico, which he pursued for one year.^[5]

In 1970, Schilling worked as general manager of Sociedad Agrícola y Maderera Rodríguez, Wall y Cía Ltda. In 1972, he served as head of the Transport Department at Distribuidora Nacional. The following year, he worked as a direct advisor to the Industrial Relations Management of the Chuquicamata Copper Company.^[5]

During his years in exile, between 1975 and 1976, he held the position of deputy manager of Industrial Relations at the Sahagún Industrial Complex in Mexico, a holding that included Ferrocarriles Nacionales, Diesel Nacional, and Siderúrgica Nacional. In 1977, he became a direct advisor to the Undersecretary of National Assets and Territorial Planning at the Mexican Secretariat of Industrial Development and Heritage.^[5]

Between 1978 and 1979, he was head of the Administration Department at Organización Mexicana de Construcciones S.A. From 1980 to 1984, he worked as a researcher in the Training and Peasant Organization Project developed under an agreement between the United Nations Development Programme, the Food and Agriculture Organization, and the National Institute for Peasant Training of the Mexican Secretariat of Agriculture and Water Resources.^[5]

Between 1983 and 1984, he was a fellow of the World University Service and worked as a researcher in the Local Development Studies Program at the Center for Economic and Social Studies. In 1985, he joined Vector as a researcher and, from that same year until 1994, served as national director of the Center for Social Studies and Promotion.^[5]

From 2000 to 2004, he served as Chile’s representative to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Between 2005 and 2006, he directed the Instituto Igualdad.^[5]

During the government of the Popular Unity coalition, Schilling was a member of the Personal Friends Group of President Salvador Allende, where he was known by the alias Gastón. Following the 1973 military coup, he spent one year in hiding before seeking asylum at the Mexican embassy, where he remained for six months prior to going into exile.^[5]

While in Mexico, he founded the magazine Convergencia and the Eugenio González Center for Socialist Studies, and participated in the process of socialist renewal and unification. Between 1991 and 1993, he served as executive secretary of the Directorate of Public Security and Information, also known as the Coordinating Council for Public Security, an agency dependent on the Presidency through the Ministry of the Interior, tasked with dismantling armed groups during the early years of the democratic transition.^[5]

From 1993 to 1994, he served as advisor to Interior Minister Enrique Krauss. Between 1994 and 2000, he held the position of Undersecretary for Regional and Administrative Development at the Ministry of the Interior. From 2000 to 2004, he was appointed Ambassador of Chile to France during the presidency of Ricardo Lagos. Concurrently, between 2003 and 2004, he served as Chilean Ambassador to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.^[5]

Upon returning to Chile, he joined the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry General Secretariat of Government as an advisor to Interior Minister José Miguel Insulza and later to Osvaldo Puccio, during the administration of President Ricardo Lagos. Between 2005 and 2006, he served as treasurer of the Socialist Party of Chile and, in 2006, was elected Secretary General of the party.^[5]

On August 11, 2008, the Political Commission of the Socialist Party appointed him as replacement Deputy for the legislative period 2006 to 2010, filling the seat of Chamber President Juan Bustos, who died while in office. In the parliamentary elections of November 2017, he was elected Deputy for the 6th District of the Valparaíso Region, representing the Socialist Party within the La Fuerza de la Mayoría coalition, for the 2018 to 2022 term, obtaining 20,072 votes, equivalent to 6.32 percent of the validly cast ballots.^[5]

In the 2021 parliamentary elections, he did not seek re-election following the enactment of Law No. 21.238 of 2020, which limited consecutive re-elections. In 2023, he ran as a candidate for the Constitutional Council representing the Socialist Party on the Unidad Para Chile list in the Valparaíso Region, but was not elected, obtaining 4.23 percent of the vote.^[5]