Raúl Morales Adriasola

Raúl Hernán Morales Adriasola (Santiago, 27 June 1929 – Santiago, 30 January 1999) was a Chilean lawyer and politician, deputy and senator of the Republic. He was a member of the Radical Party (PR) and later of the Democracia Radical (DR).

He was elected deputy for four consecutive terms between 1953 and 1969 for the 25th Departmental District of Ancud, Castro and Quinchao, and senator between 1969 and 1973 for the 10th Provincial District of Chiloé, Aysén and Magallanes. He also served as President of the Chamber of Deputies of Chile between 1964 and 1965.

He was the son of former deputy Raúl Morales Beltramí and Guillermina Adriasola Espejo. He married María Luz Flores Bustos, and later María de la Luz Soza Eckholt.

He studied at the Law School of the University of Chile, graduating as a lawyer on 3 October 1956 with the thesis *“Normas legales agrícolas y económicas para la colonización de Chile”* (“Agricultural and economic legal norms for the colonization of Chile”).

Morales began his political activity by joining the Radical Youth of Chile in 1951, becoming its national president until 1953. In 1959, he became secretary general of the party but resigned later that year along with president Humberto Aguirre Doolan and vice president Carlos Martínez Sotomayor.

In 1953 he was elected deputy for Ancud, Castro and Quinchao, being reelected in 1957, 1961, and 1965. Over these terms he served on the Permanent Commissions of Public Education; Roads and Public Works; Foreign Relations; and Treasury, among others. From 12 May 1964 to 15 May 1965 he was President of the Chamber of Deputies.

He was a Chilean delegate to the 16th United Nations General Assembly in New York in 1961.

In 1969 he was elected senator for Chiloé, Aysén, and Magallanes, serving on the Permanent Commission of Government. Since it was a newly created constituency, his term lasted four years instead of eight.

Apart from his parliamentary career, Morales also served as a notary public in Los Ángeles, a position he held until shortly before his death in 1999.

On 12 May 1964, Morales was elected President of the Chamber of Deputies, with Edmundo Eluchans Malherbe (Conservative) and Patricio Phillips (Liberal) as vice-presidents. In his inaugural speech, he pledged “to be fair and impartial” and to “represent the honorable chamber with the virtue of our predecessors,” acknowledging that he had “inflicted and received many wounds” in the course of numerous political battles.^[1]

• Armando de Ramón Folch, Biografías de chilenos miembros de los poderes Ejecutivo, Legislativo y Judicial: 1876-1973. Ediciones Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, 1999.

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