Gabriel de la Fuente

Gabriel de la Fuente Cortés (28 January 1918 – June 2004) was a Chilean agronomist, farmer and politician.

He served as Deputy for the 20th Departamental Group (Angol, Collipulli, Traiguén, Victoria and Curacautín) in three consecutive terms from 1961 to 1973. He also held municipal office as councilman and later mayor of Angol.^[1]

He was born in Yungay on 28 January 1918, the son of Ovidio de la Fuente and Emilia Cortés Cortés.

He studied at the Colegio San Ignacio in Santiago and at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, graduating in Agronomy in 1941. From that year he devoted himself to farming activities in Angol.

He married Solange Smitmans López, with whom he had five children. In second marriage with Marta Elizabeth Riveros Maldonado he had three more children.

He died in Angol in June 2004.

De la Fuente joined the Liberal Party in 1940, serving as party president in Los Sauces (1941–1951) and later in Angol (1957–1961).

Between 1947 and 1951 he was councilman (regidor) of Los Sauces. At the same time, between 1947 and 1949, he was councillor of the Caja de Crédito Agrario in the Provincial Council of Malleco.

In 1953 he was elected councilman of Angol, a post to which he was re-elected in 1960. He also served as mayor of that commune.

In 1966 he joined the newly created National Party, where he presided over the provincial council between 1969 and 1970.

In the 1961 elections, he was elected Deputy for the 20th Departamental Group (Angol, Collipulli, Traiguén, Victoria and Curacautín) for the 1961–1965 term. He was re-elected in the 1965 elections for the 1965–1969 term, and again in the 1969 elections for the 1969–1973 term, until the dissolution of Congress following the 1973 coup.

• BCN Profile