Juan Floreal Recabarren

Juan Floreal Recabarren Rojas (1927–2020) was a Chilean teacher, historian, and politician, member of the Christian Democratic Party (PDC).

He served as Deputy for the 2nd Departamental Group –Antofagasta, Tocopilla, El Loa and Taltal– during the XLVI Legislative Period (1969–1973).^[1]

He was born in Antofagasta on 21 April 1927, the son of Juan Bautista Recabarren and Inés Rojas Rojas. In 1962, he married Magaly Raby Pinto in Taltal, with whom he had three children.^[1]

Recabarren studied at the Liceo de Hombres of Antofagasta. In 1948, he entered the Pedagogical Institute of the University of Chile, where he pursued pedagogy in history, geography, and civic education. He graduated as a History and Geography teacher in 1954 with the thesis Historia del proletariado de la provincia de Antofagasta de 1884 a 1919.^[1]

He taught at the Liceo de Hombres of Antofagasta, later at the Universidad Católica del Norte and the University of Antofagasta. He also founded, together with María Orieta Véliz Castillo, the "Centro de Estudios Académicos Recabarren" in Antofagasta, dedicated to preparing students for university admission.^[1]

Recabarren joined the Christian Democratic Party in the 1950s. He served as vice president of the Student Center at the University of Chile’s Pedagogical Institute and later as provincial president of the party in Antofagasta.^[1]

He was elected regidor of Antofagasta in 1961, serving three consecutive terms until 1969. Between 1964 and 1967, he was also mayor of the city. In 1966, he received a scholarship from the Government of Germany to study municipal administration in Berlin and other German cities.^[1]

As mayor, he played a decisive role in the merger of the football clubs Unión Bellavista and Portuario Atacama, which led to the creation of Deportes Antofagasta. He is remembered as the club’s "founding president".^[1]

In the 1969 elections, Recabarren was elected Deputy for the 2nd Departamental Group, serving until 1973. He participated in the Permanent Commissions on Public Education and Mining. Among his legislative initiatives that became law were Law No. 17,375 (27 October 1970), which allocated resources to the Antofagasta campus of the University of Chile, and Law No. 17,580 (29 December 1971), which regulated pension contributions owed to current and former councilors.^[1]

In 1973, he ran for reelection but was not elected. During the 1980 Chilean constitutional referendum, he publicly denounced flaws in the voting system, which led to his brief detention on 11 September 1980.^[2]

He later returned to politics during the democratic transition. In 1992, he was elected councilor for Antofagasta, a position he held until 1996.^[1]

In 2004, Recabarren received the Ancla de Oro award from the city of Antofagasta, alongside filmmaker Adriana Zuanic and other institutions. In 2014, he promoted the "Puesta en Valor Actas Municipales del Archivo de Antofagasta" project, which digitized municipal records for public access.^[1]

He died in Antofagasta on 16 June 2020 at the age of 93, due to a cardiac arrest.^[3][4]

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