Jorge Eliécer Gaitán

Jorge Eliécer Gaitán (January 23, 1898 - April 9, 1948) was a politician, a leader of a populist movement in Colombia, a former Education Minister (1940) and Labor Minister (1943-1944), mayor of Bogotá (1936) and chief of the Colombian Liberal Party (1947-1948).

Political Career

Early Political Career

Gaitan was active in local politics as early as 1919, when he was part of a protest movement against president Marco Fidel Suarez.

Related Topics:
1919 - Marco Fidel Suarez

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From there he became a popular figure within the Liberal Party, in particular directing a movement that represented leftwing tendencies inside the party.

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Gaitan increased his nationwide popularity following a banana workers' strike in Magdalena in 1928, in which strikers were fired upon by the army, allegedly on the orders of the United Fruit Company.

Related Topics:
Magdalena - 1928 - United Fruit Company

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In 1933 he created the "Unión Izquierdista Revolucionaria" ("Leftist Revolutionary Union"), or UNIR, as his own dissident political movement after breaking with the Liberal Party.

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Political Discourse

It is said that Gaitán's main political asset was his profound and vibrant oratory, often classified as populist by contemporaries and by later analysts, which attracted hundreds of thousands of union members and low income Colombians at the time.

Related Topics:
Oratory - Populist

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In particular, in his speeches he repeatedly divided the country into the oligarchy and the people, calling the former corrupt and the later admirable and worthy of deserving a future moral restoration of Colombia. He stirred the audience's emotions by aggressively denouncing social, moral and economical evils stemming both from the Liberal and Conservative political parties, promising his supporters that a better future was possible if they all worked together against such evils.

Related Topics:
Oligarchy - People

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In 1946, Gaitán referred to the difference between what he called the "political country" and the "national country". Accordingly, the "political country" was controlled by the interests of the oligarchy and its internal struggles, therefore it did not properly respond to the real demands of the "national country"; that is, the country made up of citizens in need of better socioeconomic conditions and greater sociopolitical freedom.

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He was criticized by the more orthodox sectors of the Colombian Liberal Party (who considered him too unruly), most of the Colombian Conservative Party, the leadership of the Colombian Communist Party (who saw him as a competitor for the political affections of the masses) and by U.S. officials and its intelligence agencies (who, in the context of the Cold War, considered him dangerous, as reported in official documents).

Related Topics:
Colombian Liberal Party - Colombian Conservative Party - Colombian Communist Party - U.S. - Cold War

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Late Political Career

After formally rejoining the Liberal Party in 1935, he was selected as mayor of Bogotá in June 1936, a position he held for eight months. His administration, where he tried to implement a number of programs in areas such as education, health, urban development and housing, was cut short by political pressure groups and conflicts due to some of his policies (for example, an attempt to provide uniforms to taxi and bus service drivers). In September 1937 his daughter Gloria Gaitán was born.

Related Topics:
1935 - Mayor - Bogotá - June - 1936 - September - 1937 - Gloria Gaitán

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Gaitán was named Minister of Education in 1940 under the administration of the Liberal Party's Eduardo Santos (1938-1942), where he promoted an extensive alphabetization campaign as well as cultural activities.

Related Topics:
1940 - Eduardo Santos - 1938 - 1942 - Alphabetization

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At the conclusion of the Liberal Party's national convention in 1945 he was proclaimed as "the people's candidate" in a public square, something unusual according to political customs at the time.

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The Liberal Party was defeated in the May1946 elections at the hands of the Conservative's Mariano Ospina Perez (565,939 votes, president from 1946 to 1950) due to its own internal divisions, evidenced by its presenting two different candidates, Gaitán (358,957 votes) and Gabriel Turbay (441,199 votes), to that year's electoral race.

Related Topics:
May - 1946 - Mariano Ospina Perez - 1950 - Gabriel Turbay

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Gaitán managed to become chief of the Colombian Liberal Party in 1947, when his supporters gained the upper hand in the elections for seats in the Colombian Congress. This would have allowed for the Liberal Party to present a single candidate for the late 1949 elections.

Related Topics:
1947 - 1949

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