Radical Party of Chile

The Radical Party of Chile was a Chilean political party formed in 1863 in Copiapo by a split from the Liberal Party, shortly after the organization of the Grand Lodge of Chile, with which it kept a close relationship through Chilean Freemasonry. It historically stood for an anticlerical position, and it was instrumental in the theological reforms of the early 1880s, which removed cemeteries from Catholic Church control, created a civil registry of births and deaths and introduced a civil law of marriage. In the twentieth century it took a moderately centre-left stance and joined the Popular Front of Pedro Aguirre Cerda. It shifted to the right under Gabriel Gonzalez Videla, declared itself socialist in 1971, was banned after the 1973 coup, and in 1994 joined the Social Democracy Party to form the Social Democrat Radical Party.