Daniel Jadue

Óscar Daniel Jadue Jadue (born 28 June 1967) is a Chilean architect, sociologist and Marxist politician.

His political career began within Palestinian organizations linked to the Palestine Liberation Organization during the 1980s.

From 1987 to 1991, Jadue served as president of General Union of Palestinian Students.

During his career, Jadue has worked as a commercial architect, policy advisor, and scholar.

He was president of the General Union of Palestinian Students between 1987 and 1991 and general coordinator of the Palestinian Youth Organization of Latin America and the Caribbean between 1991 and 1993.

He joined the Communist Party of Chile in 1993, a day after the signing of the Oslo I Accord.

He was secretary of the Directorate of Communist Students and candidate for the University of Chile Student Federation in 1996.

He unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2001 and 2005.

Since 2003 he has been President of the La Chimba social and cultural development center in Recoleta (Centro de Desarrollo Social y Cultural La Chimba, de Recoleta), which has maintained, popular high schools, legal assistance, and a system of free professional operations for the neighborhood councils of the Recoleta commune since 2006.

The La Chimba center also develops a constant work of popular education for democracy, the empowerment of social leaders and environmental sustainability.

He was also a twice-unsuccessful candidate for Mayor of Recoleta in 2004 and 2008.

He is currently a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Chile.

A member of the Communist Party of Chile (PCCh), Jadue has served as Mayor of Recoleta since 2012.

A Chilean of Palestinian Christian descent, Jadue originally became involved in politics as a Palestinian independence activist.

After multiple unsuccessful attempts to achieve elected office, Jadue was elected to govern Recoleta, a commune in the Santiago Metropolitan Region, in 2012.

In this capacity, he has presided over the creation of "people's pharmacies", a series of municipal-run drugstores to provide patients with affordable medication.

Jadue was a presidential candidate in the Apruebo Dignidad primaries, in which he lost the race against Gabriel Boric.

Daniel Jadue was born in Recoleta, Santiago to small business owners Magaly del Carmen Jadue Jadue and Juan Fariz Jadue Jadue.

He was estranged from his father, a supporter of Augusto Pinochet, for most of his life.

Jadue is the grandson of Christian Palestinian immigrants who arrived in Chile during the first half of the last century.

He is also a second-degree cousin of the Chilean soccer referee Sergio Jadue.

He graduated from the University of Chile with degrees in sociology and architecture.

He has a degree in total quality management from Catholic University of the North, a master's degree in urban planning, and a specialist degree in social housing, also from the University of Chile.

Jadue has specialized in community management for the last 15 years.

He has a vast professional career linked to local development management and local governments.

He has been project manager for community development plans and participatory regulatory plans in several Chilean communes.

He has also carried out research on quality of life, gender, youth crime, employment and poverty in cities in Latin America and Europe.

He has participated with presentations in international seminars on quality of life, gender, housing and social Comptroller's office.

He was a professor at the Architecture and Urban Sociology Workshop at the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of the University of Chile.

In the architectural field, he was project manager in several public works such as the Municipality of Pichilemu, the Estación Central Cultural Center, the Pedro Aguirre Cerda House of Culture, the Fort of Purén Historical Park and the headquarters of the Union of Supervisors of Chuquicamata mine.

He was an advisor to the Chuquicamata unions on issues related to the process of transformation of Chuquicamata into an exclusive industrial zone and to some unions in the field of salmon farms in the Los Lagos Region in the preparation of their collective bargaining.

For more than five years, he was a panelist for the talk show El Termómetro on Chilevisión and participated in a political analysis program every Friday on Radio Nuevo Mundo.

He is a frequent panelist for analysis of international politics on international television stations such as TeleSur, RT, HispanTV and NTN24.

He is also a columnist for El Mostrador and Radio Cooperativa.

In 2012, Jadue's candidacy for Mayor of Recoleta was supported by left-wing electoral coalition Por un Chile Justo (For a Fair Chile).

As a candidate for mayor, he committed himself to a "citizen and participatory local government program" adhering to the citizen initiative of VotaPrograma, a program that is currently under development thanks to the participation of more than 5000 neighbors who have participated in the PLADECO Community Development Plan.

In the field of culture, he has distinguished itself for bringing Chile to the International World Of Music, Arts & Dance (WOMAD) Festival, created by Peter Gabriel, and for the creation of the Popular School of Theater, among other policies aimed at massifying the cultural creation and cultural audience in the commune, through the Jazz and Theater Festivals in the neighborhoods.

He created the first "people's pharmacy" in the country, allowing drug prices to fall by 30% to 50% (three companies that have traditionally exercised an oligopoly in this market in Chile).

More than 150 municipalities have adopted this system.

He is gradually expanding the initiative by creating a "Popular Optical" (April 2016), a "Popular Real Estate" (January 2018), a "Popular Bookstore" (January 2019), a "Popular Record Shop" (April 2019) and an "Open University" (November 2018).