Carlos Ominami


Carlos Octavio Ominami Pascual is a Chilean economist and politician, former parliamentarian and former Chilean Minister of State.

Family

Of partly Japanese ancestry, the son of Edith Pascual and Carlos Ominami Daza. He is married to the journalist and sociologist Manuela Gumucio, daughter of the former parliamentarian Rafael Agustín Gumucio and ex-wife of the general secretary of the Revolutionary Left Movement, Miguel Enríquez. His only child is Marco Enríquez-Ominami, the offspring of his wife from a previous relationship, whom he adopted as his own son from an early age.

Early career

He studied in Santiago at the Instituto Nacional and at the Faculty of Economics and Business in the University of Chile. During his student days he joined the Frente de Estudiantes Revolucionarios, remaining a member until 1973.
He was active in the MIR from 1968. In 1973, following the deposition of President Salvador Allende, he went into exile. He sought asylum in the Belgian embassy in Chile, then travelled to Brussels and then to Paris, where he took a doctorate in economics at the University of Paris in Nanterre. He worked as a researcher, between 1975 and 1978 in the Centre d'Etudes Prospectives d'Economie Mathématiques Apliquée à la Planification ; from 1978 to 1984 in the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and in the Institut Français de Recherche pour le Développement en Cooperation.
From 1978 to 1983 he was active in Convergencia Socialista. Then he joined the Chilean Socialist Party, participating actively in its reconstruction. He returned to Chile in 1984, working as adviser to the Latin American International Relations programme, a branch of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean and between 1987 and 1989 he helped to set up the Latin American Centre for Economy and International Politics.

Role in the "''Concertación''"

After 1985, he began to emerge as one of the best-regarded left-wing economists, and in 1989 became assistant coordinator of the economic programme of the Concertación.
From March 1990 to September 1992 he served as Minister for the Economy under President Patricio Aylwin. In 1993 he supported the nomination for President by the Concertación of Ricardo Lagos, who was defeated by the Christian Democrat candidate Eduardo Frei.
The same year he was elected as Senator for Constituency No. 5, in the Valparaíso region, coming top of the poll with 33.31% of the votes. At the end of 2001 he was re-elected, ahead of his DC rival Ignacio Walker. As Senator he focussed on economic affairs and was chair of the standing committee on Business, and a member of the Public Works, Health, and other committees.
In June 2009 he announced that he was leaving the PSC in order to support his son's presidential ambitions. Standing as an Independent candidate, he was defeated in the parliamentary elections in December of that year.
In June 2011 he was awarded the Japanese honour "The Order of the Rising Sun" by the Emperor
Akihito in the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. This was in recognition of his contribution towards improving relations between the two states.

Published works