Juan Esteban Montero

Juan Esteban Montero Rodríguez ( February 12, 1879 *, † February 25, 1948 in Santiago de Chile) was a Chilean politician. He officiated in 1931 and 1932 as president of his country.

Life

Montero was born the son of a wealthy conservative family and attended the Jesuit College in Santiago. He studied until 1901 Law at the Universidad de Chile and taught there following his own study. Montero married Graciela Fehrman, with whom he had four children.

Early on he joined the Radical Party, whose militant wing he counted; In 1920 he had to be defended by a court-martial against the charge of conspiracy. President Arturo Alessandri summoned the lawyers in the commission to prepare a constitution reform for Chile. The new constitution that was so it was decided in 1925 by referendum.

1931 plunged the country due to the global economic crisis into a political chaos; President Carlos Ibáñez del Campo appointed a cabinet of " national salvation ", the Montero belonged as Interior Minister. On July 26, 1931 Ibáñez forced to resign; he appointed Pedro Opazo, the Senate President, the Vice - President, who put together quickly a cabinet under the leadership of Montero and resigned the following day.

As an unelected incumbent president Montero was faced with enormous expectations of citizens who expected a swift return to constitutional normality. They also had to cope with the consequences of the world economic crisis that Chile had met with great force.

In the following debates about the legitimacy of his government Juan Montero was on the one hand as a person of integrity figure, on the other hand he reigned without a democratic mandate, although he had promised a return to democracy. On 19 August 1931, he therefore told the Congress his resignation to this, however - as the expression of a vote of confidence - not accepted. Montero would not run for the upcoming presidential election, while he reigned quasi- dictatorial: So he transferred the office of vice - president unceremoniously to his Interior Minister Manuel Trucco.

From the presidential election on October 4, 1931 Juan Esteban Montero emerged with more than 60 % of the vote as a clear winner. On November 15, he took over as vice - president back into office and on December 4 he was sworn in as president-elect before the Congress.

Montero sat in social policy, empty public coffers initially mainly due to private welfare assistance, to voluntary support of the citizens and to the pay cuts of civil servants. Despite remarkable efforts and great sacrifice of wide circles of the Chilean population, the situation remained dubious: So said Minister of Social Affairs Wilson that approximately 130,000 people in Chile would have to live under miserable circumstances without the state can help them appropriately.

In April 1932, the government had set up a commission to exchange controls to prevent the steady outflow of gold reserves of the Central Bank, to get inflation under control. Since mid-December 1931, the dire economic situation led to renewed political instability; circled in Vallenar and Copiapo rumors about a communist -guided revolt that with the invasion of communist insurgency broke out promptly on Christmas Day against the barracks of the Carabineros de Chile. The authorities responded with great severity, the military stormed the Communist Party office in Vallenar and killed all those present, a total of 21 people.

With this incident, the Montero government lost a lot of confidence in the population; the criticism heaped, strong fueled by military circles to Carlos Ibáñez, who again wanted to see in the Moneda, the Chilean presidential palace the ousted ex-dictator and of the supporters of the conservative Alessandri, the failed predecessor of Ibáñez. With these conservative forces marched along the forces of the left, who sought a Marxist revolution in Chile.

Montero desperately announced a clear leftist program that shocked the Conservatives and Liberals. On the night of June 2, 1932 in San Bernardo met several officers, including Air Force Colonel Marmaduque Grove, conspiratorial intent. The government learned of this meeting and dismissed Grove from his office as head of the Air Force Training in Chile.

This led to the uprising of the army, who stood behind Grove and against the government. Since the rest of the armed forces behaved, at best, neutral, no one was ready to defend the constitutional government; on June 4, 1932 Montero was supported by a military junta led by General Arturo Puga, Colonel Marmaduque Grove, who rose to the defense minister, the lawyer Eugenio mat and the journalist and former diplomat Carlos Dávila discontinued.

Montero returned to his removal from politics back again and taught law at the University. He died on February 25, 1948 at the age of 69 years in Santiago.