Pedro Enrique Alfonso

Alfonso began his professional career in Temuco, where he served as a court attorney and later as a teacher of civic education at the city's boys’ high school between 1927 and 1929.^[1] He later worked as second clerk of the Fifth Criminal Court of Santiago; as an employee of the prosecutor's office of the Court of Appeals of Temuco; as a court attorney of that court in 1928; and as presiding judge of the department of Ovalle from 8 January 1929. He retired from the legal profession on 11 June 1956.^[1]

Among other activities and positions, he served as president of the airline LAN Chile and of the board of the newspaper La Nación; as a member of the board of the Central Bank of Chile; as president of Compañía Industrial Vera S.A.; and as director of Confecciones Brolly S.A. and Comandari S.A. Hilados y Paños de Lana. He was also president of the Agricultural and Livestock Society of Ovalle and director of the firm Agroservicio.^[1] In addition, he served as general representative in Europe of the Corporación de Ventas del Salitre y Yodo (Covensa) and as honorary commercial attaché to the embassy in London, England.^[1]

In parallel, he was engaged in agriculture as the owner of the estate “Camarico,” located in the commune of Punitaqui.^[1]

Alfonso joined the Radical Party of Chile at a young age, a party founded by both his paternal grandfather and maternal great-grandfather. By the age of fifteen, he was already publishing political commentary in the newspaper La Construcción of Ovalle.^[1] He served as president of the party in that commune and as national president in the periods 1934–1936 and 1959.^[2]

In the 1932 Chilean general election, he was elected as Deputy for the 4th Departmental Grouping of La Serena, Elqui, Ovalle, and Illapel for the 1933–1937 legislative term.^[1] He served on the Standing Committee on the Constitution, Legislation and Justice, the Committee on Agriculture and Colonization, and as an alternate member of the Finance Committee.^[1]

In the 1937 Chilean parliamentary election, he was re-elected as Deputy for the same grouping for the 1937–1941 term. He served as an alternate member of the Standing Committee on the Constitution, Legislation and Justice and of the Committee on Roads and Public Works, and as a full member of the Finance Committee. He did not complete this term, however, due to his appointment as Minister of State in the cabinet of President Pedro Aguirre Cerda in December 1938.^[2] He was replaced in his seat by his uncle, Federico Alfonso Muñoz, who took the oath of office on 1 March 1939.^[1]

During his parliamentary tenure, his most notable legislative initiatives concerned agricultural development, budgetary organization, the introduction of divorce with dissolution of marriage, and administrative probity.^[6]

Alfonso was appointed Minister of the Interior on 24 December 1938 under President Pedro Aguirre Cerda, serving until 26 December 1939.^[1] During this period, he confronted the aftermath of the 1939 Chillán earthquake.^[1] He was subsequently reassigned as Minister of Finance, serving until 7 November 1940.^[1]

Later, during the administration of President Juan Antonio Ríos, he was appointed Minister of Economy and Trade, a post he held between 14 May 1945 and 3 February 1946.^[1]

Under President Gabriel González Videla, he was again appointed Minister of the Interior, serving from 27 February 1950 to 29 March 1951.^[1] During a trip by President González Videla to the United States, Alfonso served as Vice President of the Republic between 11 April and 8 May 1950.^[2]

With the consent of President González Videla, Alfonso became the Radical Party's candidate in the 1952 Chilean presidential election, with the support of the Radical Party, the Falange Nacional, and a faction of the Democratic Party.^[1] He placed third in the election, obtaining 190,360 votes (19.95% of the total), well behind liberal candidate Arturo Matte (27.81%) and former President Carlos Ibáñez del Campo (46.79%), who was ultimately elected President of the Republic.^[2][7][8]

Subsequently, during the administration of President Jorge Alessandri, Alfonso was appointed Minister of Agriculture on 1 August 1963, leaving office on 14 September of the same year.^[2]

In 1969, Alfonso was expelled from the Radical Party for opposing alliances with communists and socialists who supported the candidacy of Salvador Allende in the lead-up to the 1970 Chilean presidential election. He subsequently founded the “Radical Recovery Movement” and later served as president of the Radical Democracy party, from which position he opposed the Popular Unity government led by Allende between 1970 and 1973.^[2]

Alfonso died at the Clínica Santa María in Santiago on 10 September 1977, aged 74,^[1] as a result of heart disease. He was buried the following day in the family mausoleum in the city of Ovalle. A bust in his memory stands in that commune on the Alameda of Ovalle, in the central median between Vicuña Mackenna and Independencia streets.^[5] In April 2018, the monument was reinaugurated in a ceremony attended by the mayor of Ovalle, Claudio Rentería, members of the municipal council, and then Minister of Education Gerardo Varela Alfonso, one of his grandsons.^[5]