SANTIAGO, Chile — Chile’s first elected president after 17 years of brutal dictatorship has died. Patricio Aylwin was 97.

President Michelle Bachelet praised him as a man who “helped rebuild a democratic country” and said he will have a state funeral.

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She declared three days of national mourning after Tuesday’s death.

Aylwin was at the center stage of Chilean politics for over half a century, serving as president from 1990 to 1994 and as a senator and seven times head of his centrist Christian Democratic Party. TVJ