Carlos Ibáñez del Campo

Born in Linares on November 3, 1877, Carlos Ibáñez del Campo had a distinguished military career, training the Salvadoran military before returning to Chile as director of the Cavalry School. Emerging as a pivotal nationalist figure in the military movements of 1924–1925, he assumed the presidency in 1927. His first administration modernized Chile’s public administration: he established the unified national police force Carabineros de Chile (1927), the Chilean Air Force (FACh, 1930), the National Petroleum Company (ENAP), and the national airline LAN Chile. Facing the economic catastrophe of the Great Depression, he resigned in 1931. In 1952, he made a historic democratic comeback, elected president by a landslide as a populist reformer promising to sweep away political corruption with his symbolic "broom" (la escoba). He established the Bank of the State (Banco del Estado) and reformed voting laws before stepping down peacefully in 1958, passing away in Santiago in 1960.