Enrique Fernando Santiago Romero (born 1964) is a Spanish lawyer and politician, who is the secretary-general of the

Communist Party of Spain The Communist Party of Spain ( es, Partido Comunista de España; PCE) is a Marxist-Leninist party that, since 1986, has been part of the United Left coalition, which is part of Unidas Podemos. It currently has two of its politicians serving as ...

(PCE) since April 2018. He has been as member of the

13th Congress of Deputies The 13th Congress of Deputies was a meeting of the Congress of Deputies, the lower house of the Spanish Cortes Generales, with the membership determined by the results of the general election held on 28 April 2019. The congress met for the first ...

, representing

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

, since 2019.

Biography

Born on 18 July 1964 in

, he affiliated to the

(PCE) in 1980. He earned a

Licentiate degree A licentiate (abbreviated Lic.) is an academic degree present in many countries, representing different educational levels. It may be similar to a master's degree when issued by pontifical universities and other universities in Europe, Latin Am ...

in Law at the

Complutense University of Madrid The Complutense University of Madrid ( es, Universidad Complutense de Madrid; UCM, links=no, ''Universidad de Madrid'', ''Universidad Central de Madrid''; la, Universitas Complutensis Matritensis, links=no) is a public research university loca ...

. A member of United Left (IU) since its beginnings as political alliance in 1986, he was the leader of the

Communist Youth Union of Spain The Communist Youth Union of Spain ( es, Unión de Juventudes Comunistas de España, UJCE; also simply the Communist Youth) is the youth organisation of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE). The UJCE merged with the Federation of the Socialist Yout ...

from 1991 to 1993. He has also chaired the Spanish Commission for Refugees (CEAR). He has worker as lawyer, specialized in human rights and cases of trans-national justice, and took a role as IU representative in the public prosecution against Argentine and Chilean regimes, later filing a detention request against Chilean dictator

Augusto Pinochet Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte (, , , ; 25 November 1915 – 10 December 2006) was a Chilean general who ruled Chile from 1973 to 1990, first as the leader of the Military Junta of Chile from 1973 to 1981, being declared President of ...

. He also worked as lawyer for the family of

José Couso José Couso Permuy (5 October 1965 – 8 April 2003) was a Spanish cameraman who was one of the April 8, 2003 journalist deaths by U.S. fire after a U.S. tank fired at the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad, Iraq during the 2003 Iraq invasion. Biogr ...

, cameraman killed in

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...

in 2003 by US fire, participating in the particular accusation that presented a criminal inquiry before the

Audiencia Nacional The Audiencia Nacional (; en, National Court) is a centralised court in Spain with jurisdiction over all of the Spanish territory. It is specialised in a certain scope of delinquency, having original jurisdiction over major crimes such as those ...

, accusing the US military personnel deemed responsible for the Couso's death. The Central Committee of the PCE elected Santiago as the new Secretary-General of the party on 8 April 2018, replacing

José Luis Centella José Luis Centella Gómez (born 1958) is a Communist Party of Spain (PCE) politician. He served in the Congress of Deputies from 1995 to 2004 and 2011 to 2015. He was his party's secretary general from 2009 to 2018, subsequently becoming its presi ...

. He was IU's final choice to lead the party for the 2019 Congress of Deputies election in the constituency of

(IU leader

Alberto Garzón Alberto Carlos Garzón Espinosa (; born 9 October 1985) is a Spanish politician and economist, currently the Spanish Minister of Consumer Affairs. He has been a member of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) and United Left (''Izquierda Unida' ...

opted to stand as candidate in

Málaga Málaga (, ) is a municipality of Spain, capital of the Province of Málaga, in the autonomous community of Andalusia. With a population of 578,460 in 2020, it is the second-most populous city in Andalusia after Seville and the sixth most pop ...

), integrating 3rd in the list of the

Unidas Podemos Unidas Podemos (), formerly called Unidos Podemos () and also known in English as United We Can, is a democratic socialist electoral alliance formed by Podemos, United Left, and other left-wing to far-left parties in May to contest the 2016 Spa ...

coalition. He was elected, and became a member of the 13th term of the Lower House.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Santiago, Enrique Communist Party of Spain politicians Members of the 13th Congress of Deputies (Spain) 1964 births Living people Members of the 14th Congress of Deputies (Spain)