Presidential (first round), congressional and regional elections were held in Chile on November 17, 2013. The President of Chile is elected for a four-year term, not immediately renewable, by a two-round system. A second round will be held on December 15, 2013 since no candidate won over 50% of the vote in the first round. The entirety of the lower house of the National Congress (Congreso Nacional), the Chamber of Deputies (Cámara de Diputados), elected for four-year terms and half of the Senate (Senado), elected for eight-year terms, were up for reelection. For the first time, voters also directly elected their regional councillors (consejeros regionales) in the country’s 15 administrative regions.
This very long post is designed as an ex post facto guide to Chilean political history, politics and the campaign (with analysis of the results) than just as a usual post-election analysis. That’s why it is so,so long (but, again, divided into sections).
Electoral system
Map of Chile (physical)
The President of Chile, who is head of state and government, is elected to a four-year term under a traditional two-round system in which a candidate must win 50%+1 of the votes to be elected outright by the first round. The President may not serve consecutive terms in office, although a former President may serve a second non-consecutive term in office.
Members of both houses of Congress are elected by the binomial system in two-member constituencies. The Chamber of Deputies’ 120 deputies are elected for four-year terms in 60 two-member districts (distritos), while the Senate’s 38 senators are elected for eight-year terms in 19 two-member constituencies (circunscripciones) – renewed by halves every four years. The binomial system, an issue of hot debate in Chile, is an enduring legacy of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet and the negotiated transition to democracy in 1989.
There are major population disparities between the districts/constituencies, with two urban districts in Santiago having over 600,000 people and two regional districts having less than 100,000.
In each district/constituency, each party/coalition of parties runs one or two candidates (almost always two, independents will often run alone) which are considered as a ‘list’. However, voters do not vote for party lists – they vote for two candidates, regardless of party lists. Nonetheless, when results are calculated, the votes cast for all lists’ candidate(s) are added together and the two lists which obtained the most votes win one seat each. Within each list, the candidate which won the most votes of the two candidates is elected. However, when a single list wins more than twice the number of votes cast for the second-placed list, that list obtains both seats. For example, if list A wins 60% of the vote and list B wins 30% of the vote, then list A would win both seats. However, if list B was to win 31% of the vote (and list A still 60%), then both seats would be split between these two lists.
The binomial system leads the over-representation of the two largest blocs and severely penalizes third parties/coalitions, which are, more often than not, unable to win seats in Congress. The workings of the binomial system also means that the two candidates who won the most votes are not necessarily elected; for example, if the winning list’s second-placed candidate won more votes than the first placed candidate on the list which placed second, the winning lists’s second candidate will only be elected if his/her list won more than twice the number of votes cast for the list placing second. If not, the first candidate of list B would be elected even if he/she has less votes than the second candidate on list A.
The binomial system establishes a structurally conservative system, in which the relative size of the two largest blocs change relatively little from election to election. The system is often criticized for the left, especially the extra-parliamentary left, because of the immobility it creates and the exclusion of weaker third parties. The system’s supporters, who are often on the right of the spectrum, argue that it allows for political stability and encourages the creation of two, strong blocs.
Political history
Chile’s contemporary politics, society and economy remain heavily influenced by the country’s tumultuous history. Understanding Chilean political history is key to understanding the political issues, debates and structure which exist today. Certainly, the enduring legacy of Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship has continued to play a huge role in Chilean politics and society, but it is important to understand the various long-lasting issues in Chilean politics which led to the 1973 coup and which, to a certain extent, continue to inform political debate in Chile.
Chilean political history is made all the more interesting because it stands out from the traditional story of Latin American politics. Chile came closer to European ideological, class-based and partisan politics than practically any other Latin American country; while Chile’s politics were unstable and not immune to coups and military intervention, Chileans long prided themselves on their relatively robust democratic system which endured for decades while other countries came under the iron fist of caudillos. What led to this unique state of things? And what caused Chilean democracy to unravel and fall victim to a bloody dictatorial regime in 1973?
Conservative Republic (1829-1861)
In the nineteenth century, as in most other Latin American countries at the time, Chilean politics – a game reserved to the landowning elites – was marked by the traditional battle between Conservatives and Liberals, a political struggle which expressed different views on the organization of powers (strength of the executive), the role of Catholic Church, the economy and political liberties. Although there seems to be a tendency to overstate the ideological antagonism of these profoundly elitist factions, the liberals generally came to stand for individual liberties, democracy with checks on executive powers, free trade and were generally anti-clerical and supported the ideals embodied by the French and American Revolutions; while the conservative stood for an aristocratic authoritarian, and centralized government, and supported the privileges of the Catholic Church.
In 1829, a conservative alliance of pelucones (aristocratic ‘bigwigs’), estanqueros (tobacco monopolists led by Diego Portales) and o’higginistas (followers of the deposed autocratic independence leader Bernardo O’Higgins) defeated the liberal pipiolos and led to the establishment of the Conservative Republic, which would last until 1861.
The dominant figure of the first decade of conservative rule was Diego Portales, who despite never being President himself became the most powerful man in the country until his assassination in 1837. Portales wanted a strong and centralized government which would command full authority, ensure stability and embody patriotism and virtues (he spoke of the need to guide the fundamentally sinful citizens on the path of order and virtue). Although he was fairly uninterested by the drafting of 1833 Constitution, the text – which would serve as the basis of Chilean politics (in very different forms) until 1925 – took up many of Portales’ political views – a strong, respected and centralized government and guarantees of the Catholic Church’s predominant role in society. The new constitution inaugurated an era of political stability and stuttered economic development (the Chilean silver rush, until the 1850s).
Portales, keen to assert Chilean dominance over the Pacific, led the country into a controversial war with the Peru-Bolivian Confederation. The outbreak of war, opposed by large swathes of the Chilean elites, led to a military rebellion and Portales’ assassination in 1837. With Portales’ death, however, the rebellion was nipped in the bud and the Chileans, led by Manuel Bulnes, eventually defeated the Confederation in 1839. Bulnes became president in 1841, presiding over ten calm years of economic growth, creativity and colonization of the Chilean territory. In 1851, a brief revolution by liberals and rival conservatives opposed to president-elect Manuel Montt was defeated.
Manuel Montt’s second five-year term in office (1856-1861) saw the division of the ruling conservative elite over the ‘question of the sacristan’ (Cuestión del Sacristán), an issue which spoke to the role of the Catholic Church in politics. Ultramontane Conservatives, supporters of a strong Church, broke with Montt and his minister, Antonio Varas, who came to favour the supremacy of secular power over ecclesiastical power. Montt and Varista founded the National Party (Partido Nacional), which represented banks and corporate interests. The Conservative Party became a clerical party, often described as the mere political arm of the clergy. However, notwithstanding profound ideological differences and historical antagonisms, the Conservatives found common ground with the ostensibly anti-clerical Liberal Party (out of power since 1831) in opposition to the Montt government and in 1857, the two old parties formed an alliance, the Fusión Liberal Conservadora (the ‘fusion’). The Liberals’ alliance with the clerical Conservatives led to the creation, in 1862, of the anti-clerical Radical Party.
Liberal Republic (1861-1891)
José Joaquín Pérez, backed by the nacionales and the fusión, was elected President, unopposed, in 1861. His election marked the transition to the Liberal Republic, which governed the country until 1891. The Nationals, who had backed the president-elect’s candidacy, were gradually excluded from power after 1862, when Pérez formed a cabinet composed of Liberals and Conservatives. The transition from the Conservative Republic to the Liberal Republic was very much a negotiated elite agreement, with the simple transfer of power from one branch of the elite to another. The Liberals, who became predominant, used their control of the administrative apparatus to control elections and persecute opponents. The economic structure of the country, controlled by landowners and urban corporate interests, remained unchanged.
Pérez’s government was able to surmount differences between the Liberals and Conservatives on the ‘theological question’, with modest openings of the elite. In 1865, Catholicism was confirmed as the official religion but freedom of religion was recognized, and non-Catholics were given the right to their own churches and religious schools. A constitutional reform in 1871 barred the President from running for reelection. Economically, the end of the silver rush in northern Chile marked the beginning of the nitrate industry, originally in regions still controlled by Bolivia.
Pérez was succeeded by fusionista candidate Federico Errázuriz Zañartu, a Liberal. In domestic policy, the theological question came to poison relations between the parties of the fusión. In 1873, the Liberal-Conservative alliance broke up over the issue of education, with the Conservative minister responsible for public instruction wishing to permit more ‘freedom of education’ (more powers to Catholic private schools). The Liberals became the dominant force, in alliance with the Radicals, who were anti-clerical and committed to constitutional reform to reduce presidential powers and allow more civil liberties. The last years of Errázuriz’s presidency brought major constitutional reforms: reducing the quorum for both houses of Congress, electoral reform (1874), recognition of the right of assembly and limits on the President’s power to declare a state of siege. Between 1876 and 1886, the Liberals ruled in coalition with the Radicals.
Chile faced an economic crisis in the late 1870s. Chilean wheat exports faced tough competition from more centrally located Argentina as well as Russia and Canada, as lost the Californian market. The nascent copper mining industry also faced tough foreign competition and high production costs. The nitrate industry which would make Chile’s fortune until the 1920s was not yet fully developed, and the saltpeter deposits in the Atacama Desert were still under Peruvian and Bolivian sovereignty. Chilean expansionist desires and a thirst to gain access to the mineral-rich region clashed with Peruvian and Bolivian economic nationalism, and war was inevitable. Chile defeated Peru and Bolivia in the War of the Pacific (1879-1883), and subsequently annexed the contested mineral-rich regions. The loss of Bolivia’s access to the sea continues to arouse deep anti-Chilean resentments in Bolivia (and Peru, to a lesser extent) to this day; Bolivia still claims the lost territory and ‘recovery’ of its access to the sea is a symbolic priority for successive Bolivian governments.
The victory in the War of the Pacific led to the nitrate/saltpeter boom, with the country’s economy and treasury becoming dependent on nitrate exports (nitrate could be used as a fertilizer or for ammunition). European, primarily British, investors came to control a vast majority of the nitrate industry. The growth of the mining industry, first with nitrate and later with copper, expanded the governing elite. Unlike in other Latin American countries, there was a successful ‘marriage’ of the traditional landowning class and the new mining and manufacturing elites, with family ties between the various sectors of the economy. The mining boom also led to the appearance of an organized working-class in the waning days of the nineteenth century. Unlike in Argentina, the Chilean working-class was native-born, not foreign-born. This key difference would mean that Chilean workers had direct access to political action.
President Domingo Santa María (1881-1886) clashed with Rome over the nomination of the Archbishop of Santiago and between 1883 and 1885, his government passed a number of landmark ‘leyes laicas‘ which reduced the Church’s power. These laws included secular cemeteries (previously, non-Catholics could be barred from burial in Catholic cemeteries), the civil registry of births and deaths and civil marriage (which made it possible for non-Catholics to contract a valid marriage).
José Manuel Balmaceda became President of Chile in 1886. Balmaceda intended to leave his mark on Chile and take a much more active role in the management of the country. His main objectives included an ambitious campaign of public works, economic development, economic diversification and the unification of the fractious liberal movement into a single party. However, Balmaceda’s activism displeased Congress, which had been intent on establishing its hegemony over the executive branch. His desire to raise funds for public works project by raising taxes on mining in the north and his wish to break the foreign monopoly in the railways won him the enmity of mine owners and foreign capital.
When a new railroad in Argentina facilitated cattle exports from the Argentine pampas to Chile and lowered meat prices in Chile, Chilean landowners proposed to place a tariff on Argentine beef imports. This proposal raised the ire of Santiago’s lower middle-class of skilled workers, artisans and small merchants who united to oppose the bill (which was also opposed by mine owners). In Santiago, the lower middle-classes were mobilized by the Democrat Party (Partido Demócrata), a splinter of the Radical Party founded in 1887 which took a deeper interest in the socioeconomic conditions of the working-classes and artisans. The Democrat Party never achieved major electoral success, but its victory on the tariff issue and its articulation of mass demands showed how far Chile had come on the road towards mass politics.
In the meantime, Congress clashed with Balmaceda and his government founds its efforts frustrated by congressional opposition. According to the latest interpretation of the 1833 constitution, a president’s cabinet needed the confidence of both houses of Congress, which Balmaceda no longer enjoyed. The situation worsened in October 1890 as Balmaceda formed a cabinet led by Claudio Vicuña, who was seen as Balmaceda’s hand-picked successor for the presidency. Congress failed to produce a budget for 1891, prompting Balmaceda to extend the previous year’s appropriations. This was the last straw for Congressional leaders, who joined forces with the rebellious navy (the army remained pro-presidential). Between January and September 1891, the presidential and congressional forces – backed by the army and navy respectively – fought a civil war which claimed up to 10,000 lives and resulted in the rout of Balmaceda’s supporters and his eventual suicide at the Argentine embassy in September 1891.
Parliamentary Republic (1891-1925)
The civil war marked the end of the Liberal Republic and the beginning of the Parliamentary Republic in Chilean history, an era which would last to 1925. The President found his powers seriously circumscribed by Congress; the President and his cabinet was now responsible to Congress, which brought down cabinet after cabinet.
Partly as a result of this parliamentary system, which was unusual in a continent largely dominated by presidential systems modeled on the United States, Chile developed a stronger, impersonal party system in which parties were slightly more ideological (although differences were thin) and far less dominated by single caudillos (although personality still won over ideas in the parties); this proved a stark contrast with countries such as Brazil, Peru, Paraguay and later Argentina.
The multiparty system in Chile undermined the stability of the new parliamentary republic: parties proliferated to five by the turn of the century, with the Liberals, Conservatives, Nationals, Radicals and Liberal Democrats (the balmacedista party). A unión sagrada between the Liberals, Radicals and Conservatives quickly broke up (by 1894). Coalitions and alliances of parties, themselves unstable and fractious, became key in the new congressional-dominated political system. The Conservatives formed the Coalición, while factions of the Liberals and the Radicals formed the Alianza Liberal. The lines between coalitions were blurred, however. The Liberals were divided, with some elements joining the Conservatives in the Coalition and others allying with the Radicals in the anti-clerical and progressive Liberal Alliance. The Nationals and Liberal Democrats (ironically, the advocates of presidentialism proved the masters of the Machiavellian world of coalition politics) went back and forth between the two blocs, adding to the instability. President Federico Errázuriz, a Liberal and second President of the Parliamentary Republic (1891-1901), was elected President, backed by the Coalition, with a three vote majority in the electoral college against a Liberal candidate backed by the Liberal-Radical coalition.
Presidents were forced to form cabinets (with the Minister of the Interior acting as a sort of ‘Prime Minister’) which corresponded to whichever coalition controlled Congress. Given that coalitions never lasted their full terms, changes in coalition politics led to cabinets falling. Under the presidency of Germán Riesco (1901-1906), no less than seventeen cabinets came and went. Despite having been elected with the backing of Liberal Alliance, was compelled to govern with the Coalition between 1902 and 1904 after the Liberal Democrats briefly abandoned the Liberal Alliance. This chronic instability meant the the President was weak, unable to take bold policy actions.
Economically, the years until 1914 saw economic growth and the development of infrastructure (the Transandine Railway with Argentina, for example) on the back of the saltpeter industry. A new smelting process right after 1900 allowed the Chilean copper mining industry to take off. Gradually, copper came to replace nitrates as Chile’s main export, especially during the 1920s. The shift from nitrate to copper also led to major changes in the economic structure of the country, which would have capital importance on the country’s history. The copper mines were owned by a few American mining companies (Anaconda Copper and Kennecott Copper). The Americans displaced the British as the main foreign investors, and the US became Chile’s main export partner. The control of the copper industry by a few American-based companies meant that it provided little stimulus for the rest of the economy: heavy reliance on capital and technology meant modest levels of employment for Chilean workers, most equipment was imported and most profits were sent to the US rather than invested in Chile. Nationalist resentment would begin to grow as a result.
During the first decade of the new century, the rise of working-class activism meant that the old theological question was supplanted by the ‘social question’ as the main focal point of political debate. The rural exodus and industrialization led to poverty, unsanitary living conditions, overpopulation of urban areas and a high mortality rate. In the mines, working conditions were atrocious and extremely dangerous, an issue which did not preoccupy mine owners and the aristocratic elite much. Indeed, the political system until the 1920s remained heavily elitist in character. The two main blocs, divided by personal squabbles rather than ideology, only represented different factions of the wider elite: the Conservatives representing landowners and the Church, the Liberals and Radicals representing the industrial and commercial elites. The government was hostile to working-class activism and showed little concern with the conditions of the working-classes (Sunday rest was introduced only in 1907). Seeing strikes and protests as revolutionary challenges, the government used force to respond to such movements. In 1905, protests against a new tariff on Argentine beef imports degenerated into a riot. In 1907, a miners’ strike in Iquique ended in a bloody massacre. Trade unions and mutual aid societies grew in the late 1900s and early 1910s, and the Socialist Worker’s Party (Partido Obrero Socialista, POS), founded in 1912, became the first lasting socialist party in Chile. In 1922, the POS became the Communist Party of Chile (Partido Comunista de Chile, PCCh)
World War I and the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 led to an economic decline in the country, although the Allied demand for nitrates (used in ammunition) later led to an economic boom which lasted throughout the war years and compensated the loss of German markets. During the war years, the government also showed itself slightly more concerned by the social question, although largely as a means of undercutting rising militancy. Congress passed workmen’s compensation (1916), employer’s liability (1917) and a retirement system for railway workers (1919). Economic growth during the war, however, strengthened labour’s hand and by 1917 the labour movement became even more influential and strikes more violent. 1919 saw high levels of labour mobilization, and the government began intervening in labour conflicts, sometimes on the side of labour.
Arturo Alessandri, President of Chile, and his dog ‘Ulk’ (source: Wikimedia)
Some sectors of the elite – the most enlightened factions of the Liberals and Radicals – saw the impotency of the oligarchic elite and opened the door to middle-class and working-class participation in politics. In 1920, Arturo Alessandri, the candidate the Liberal Alliance (‘doctrinaire’ Liberals, Radicals and Democrats), attempted to build an alliance of the middle-classes and working-class on a platform which promised labour reforms and a stronger executive and was critical of the oligarchy. Alessandri lost the popular vote to Luis Barros Borgoño, the candidate backed by the Conservatives, moderate Liberals, Nationals and some Liberal Democrats. However, Alessandri won the electoral college vote 179 to 175 and was elected President.
Alessandri, like many of his successors, failed to live up to his ambitious agenda. Alessandri faced mounting labour unrest with the economic crisis and had to deal with the hostility of the oligarchy in Congress. Although he originally sided with labour in labour conflicts, within a few months of his election in 1921, he opted for the employers. Nevertheless, Alessandri’s proposals for a major labour code and social welfare package got bogged down in Congress, controlled by forces hostile to reform. The deadlock displeased both organized labour and the young officers of the military officers corps who, in September 1924, took matters into their own hands. During a session of Congress which discussed remuneration of congressmen, young military officers protested their low salaries by rattling their sabres (literally). The next day, a “military committee” presented Alessandri with their demands, which included passage of labour legislation and the dismissal of three ministers. Alessandri appointed General Luis Altamirano as Minister of the Interior, and facing such pressure, Congress quickly approved labour legislation which included an eight-hour workday, banning child labour, regulation of collective bargaining, workplace safety regulations and the legalization of trade unions (subject to close government supervision). But Alessandri felt as if he was losing his fight within the military and resigned as President, and left for exile in Italy.
Presidential Republic (1925-1952)
Altamirano’s junta was unstable and the young officers who had put him there soon rebelled when they felt that Altamirano had betrayed the ideals of their September 1924 revolt and began clamoring for Alessandri’s return. In January 1925, another coup take place and pro-Alessandri young officers formed a new junta. In March 1925, Alessandri returned to the presidency with the goal of writing a new constitution. In September 1925, a new constitution was approved by voters. The new constitution, which was Alessandri’s brainchild, created a presidential republic in which the President, now directly elected by voters to a six-year term, saw his powers strengthened. Ministers were no longer responsible to Congress, the legislative and executive branches were separated (ministers could not serve in Congress) and Church and state were separated.
Alessandri’s government cracked down on labour opposition. Protests in nitrate mining towns in March and June 1925 led to massacres, in which up to 2,000 workers were killed by the army.
Alessandri came to resent the growing power of his ambitious war minister, Carlos Ibáñez, a leader of the 1924 and 1925 coups. In October 1925, Alessandri resigned the presidency and the first direct presidential was held later that month. Emiliano Figueroa Larraín, backed by all the old parties and with Ibáñez’s blessing and endorsement, easily won the ensuing election with 71.5% against a candidate backed by the Communists and socialists. The new president was weak and became widely perceived as Ibáñez’s tool. In May 1927, after Ibáñez had exiled the President’s brother, he resigned and Ibáñez became interim President (as Minister of the Interior). Ibáñez was elected President in his own right later in 1927.
Carlos Ibáñez broke with the rather democratic (to an extent) traditions of Chile and exercised dictatorial powers. Opponents were jailed or exiled, he gained full control of Congress by nominating the parties’ candidates himself and he ruled by decree. The good economic climate of the late 1920s around the world cemented his power for some time; through foreign loans, he was able to expand the size of government and embark on large public works projects. A populist leader, Ibáñez passed some social legislation including a new labour code. However, the Great Depression of 1929 – which sent nitrate and copper prices crashing – hit Chile extremely hard, resulting in high unemployment and a reawakening of popular unrest. The government’s measures against the depression, including attempts to create a national cartel to sell nitrates abroad, proved unsuccessful. In July 1931, following large student protests, Ibáñez was forced to resign.
Chile entered a period of political instability following Ibáñez’s resignation. President Juan Esteban Montero (right-wing Radical), elected to the presidency in October 1931 over Alessandri, was a weak leader and his austerity policies were unpopular in restless times. He faced down a naval mutiny in August-September 1931, but after less than a year in office, he was overthrown by a military coup in June 1932. The coup’s ringleaders, including Marmaduke Grove, proclaimed a Socialist Republic which promised major social reforms (a savings and loans banks for low-income Chileans, stopped evictions, 36-hour workweek, wealth tax) but lasted only a few days as it was internally divided and met with much opposition (including from the Communists). Carlos Dávila, a coup leader who supported Ibáñez, overthrew the socialist leadership and seized power. In September 1932, a counter-coup overthrew Dávila.
Arturo Alessandri, backed by a centrist coalition of Liberals, Radicals and Democrats, triumphed in the October 1932 presidential election with 54.8% against 17.7% for Marmaduke Grove, backed by socialist groups. A year later, various socialist groups united to form the Socialist Party (Partido Socialista, PS), which adopted a revolutionary and Marxist platform but presented itself as an alternative to the dogmatic and sectarian Communists (who were marginalized because of Moscow’s ‘class against class’ directives).
Alessandri was no longer the fiery battler of his earlier days and his government were very conservative. Alessandri’s second presidency, however, saw the slow recovery of the country from the depression and the chaos of 1931-1932. Alessandri cracked down on opposition – be it military, leftist, Nazi or nationalist. Militias which had Alessandri’s blessing participated in the repression of opposition until their self-dissolution in 1936. The Radicals, reorienting towards the left, broke with Alessandri’s right-wing government in 1934. In February 1936, Alessandri declared a state of siege and temporarily closed Congress. Economically, Alessandri and his ultra-orthodox finance minister Gustavo Ross drastically reduced public spending and reduced the size of the state after Ibáñez’s expansion. With the recovery of demand for Chilean minerals, the economy grew, unemployment dropped considerably and the foreign debt was cut by 31%.
The 1938 presidential election was a highly polarized contest. Following the Comintern’s orders, the Communist Party adopted the Popular Front strategy, seeking broad alliances with the democratic bourgeois parties and non-proletarian groups to counter fascism. The Radicals, who had moved leftwards under Alessandri’s presidency, were the first to accept the Communists’ offer and a Frente Popular (FP) coalition was formed in May 1936. The Socialists joined the FP in 1938. Pedro Aguirre Cerda, a Radical (who had opposed the FP strategy), was nominated as the FP’s candidate after Marmaduke Grove, the PS favourite, dropped out. The Liberals and Conservatives, both of them very similar right-wing parties by this point, supported Gustavo Ross, Alessandri’s very orthodox finance minister who was reviled by the left. Some young Conservatives (Eduardo Frei Montalva), from the social Christian faction of the party, opposed the decision and founded the Falange Nacional, a party which originally praised Salazar and Dollfuβ. Former President Carlos Ibáñez, who still had a dedicated base of supporters, was also in the race, backed by an heterogeneous coalition which included the Nazis (the MNS had won 3.5% and 3 seats in the Chamber in 1937) and pro-Grove PS dissidents.
In early September, two months before the election, a group of young ibañista Nazis staged a coup attempt to overthrow Alessandri and install Ibáñez as dictator. Alessandri called in the military, who captured and kill 59 Nazis, perhaps on the President’s direct orders. The ‘massacre of the Seguro Obrero’ created a firestorm which hurt Alessandri and his candidate. Ibáñez dropped out of the race and endorsed the FP candidate. Pedro Aguirre Cerda won the election by only 4,000 votes over Ross.
There was nothing revolutionary about Aguirre Cerda’s Radical-led government, which included three Socialist ministers (including Salvador Allende as Minister of Health) but no Communist members. The FP government soon found itself worn down by tensions between the Socialists and Communists, divided by theoretical disagreements and competition for a similar electorate. The Communists and Socialists distanced themselves from the Radical government, with the Socialists shutting the door to the FP in 1940. The Communists made major gains in the 1941 congressional elections, winning 14% and 16 seats, up from only 4% in 1937.
Notwithstanding these internal divides, the government was relatively successful. Aguirre Cerda’s government supported government intervention in the economy (along social democratic or Keynesian principles) and import substitution industrialization (ISI) which was in vogue in South America around that time (and later). A teacher by trade, Aguirre Cerda promoted education and opened new regular and technical schools. His most memorable contribution to history was the creation of the Production Development Corporation (CORFO) in 1939, after the Chillán earthquake. CORFO, which still exists, aimed to promote economic growth and sovereignty, reconstruction and the development of basic industries through investments. CORFO helped establish state-owned oil, energy and steel companies.
Aguirre Cerda faced opposition from the right and the more fascistic of Ibáñez’s supporters. In August 1939, General Ariosto Herera attempted, unsuccessfully, to overthrow the government and install Ibáñez.
Aguirre Cerda died in office of tuberculosis in November 1941, and new elections were held in February 1942. Juan Antonio Ríos, representing the conservative wing of the Radicals, narrowly defeated the left-leaning Radical Gabriel González Videla in the Radical primaries. His opponent was Carlos Ibáñez, who this time received the backing of the traditional right-wing forces – the Conservatives and the majority of the Liberals. On the left, the Socialists and Communists, both on bad terms with the Radicals, were at best lukewarm towards Ríos’ candidacy and tried to do their own thing. However, up again Ibáñez, who was widely perceived as a fascist/authoritarian threat by the left, both the PS and PCCh made their peace with the Radicals and reluctantly endorsed Ríos, forming a makeshift Democratic Alliance. Ríos’ candidacy was also endorsed by the social Christian Falange Nacional, the agrarians and above all former Liberal President Arturo Alessandri and his supporters in the Liberal Party (Ibáñez being Alessandri’s arch-enemy). With such backing, Ríos easily won, with 56% against 44% for Ibáñez.
Ríos, as promised, formed a broad government with Radicals, Liberals, Socialists and members of other parties. On the diplomatic front, Ríos’ government was confronted with Chile’s problematic neutrality in World War II. Chile declared war, on Japan only, on April 11, 1945 – but Chilean sympathies under Ríos were with the Allies, having broken diplomatic ties with the Axis in early 1943. The United States fixed a discounted price for Chilean nitrates, which caused Chile to lose over $500 million. On domestic issues, he continued his predecessor’s policy of ISI and desarrollismo, although he dealt with a weaker economy and inflation.
Ríos’ government was undermined by partisan instability. The Socialists split over the issue of participation in government at their congress in 1943, where the anti-government faction led by Salvador Allende defeated a pro-government wing led by Marmaduke Grove, who left the PS to form his own party (the Authentic Socialist Party, PSA). The Communists criticized Ríos for his policy of neutrality and failure to declare war on the Axis. The right, particularly the Conservatives, felt that Ríos was being held hostage by the left. Ríos faced serious troubles within his own party, who disliked his broad government with the Liberals. In 1944, the Radicals issued a series of unacceptable demands on Ríos’ government, and he was left without any reliable base of support. The Radicals, Chile’s ultimate middle-of-the-road party, was finding itself torn – for the umpteenth time – between left and right. After being victorious in the 1944 municipal elections, the Democratic Alliance suffered loses in the 1945 congressional elections, winning only 41.8% to the right’s 45.7%. The Socialists, worn down by the split in party ranks, lost the most (-9 seats) but the Radicals and Communists lost ground as well.
Ríos, who had terminal cancer, withdrew from office in favour of his Minister of the Interior, the anticommunist Radical Alfredo Duhalde, in January 1946. He died in June 1946. During Duhalde’s interim presidency, the police cracked down on a strike in Santiago, killing six workers.
The 1946 presidential election was more open ended than ever. The Radicals were split, again, between left (Gabriel González Videla) and right (Duhalde), but with the right walking out, Gabriel González Videla was nominated as the Radical candidate, and received the the Communists’ endorsement and unofficial backing from Socialists. The Conservatives and the Falangists nominated Eduardo Cruz-Coke, the Liberals and right-wing Radicals (PRD) were behind Fernando Alessandri (Arturo Alessandri’s son and a Liberal senator) while the Socialists – on bad terms with the Communists – officially nominated anticommunist union leader Bernardo Ibáñez, although many Socialists backed González Videla and Grove’s PSA endorsed Alessandri. Gabriel González Videla won a plurality of the vote, 40.2%, against 29.8% for Cruz-Coke, 27.4% for Alessandri and only 2.5% for the PS candidate. In the absence of any winner with an absolute majority, the Congress, as per the constitution, would choose from the top two candidates. González Videla attracted Liberal, Falangist, Socialist and Communist votes and won 138 votes to Cruz-Coke’s 46 votes.
Gabriel González Videla’s government made history because the Communists, for the first time in the Americas, entered government with three ministers, but the Liberals were also represented. The Communists’ strength combined with the new Cold War arithmetic alarmed anticommunist public opinion. In the 1947 municipal elections, the Communists won a record 16.5% of the vote (more than the Liberals), sending the old parties into a frenzy. The Liberals demanded that the President dismiss the Communists from government, which he did. Like in France and Italy, the Communists’ withdrawal from government in 1947 marked the definite end of Popular Front-type alliances between communism and the ‘bourgeois’ democrats. The Communists became implacable foes of the Radical government, and mounted large general strikes in key industries against the government while the government denounced the Communists as the causes of political instability.
Under pressure from Washington, the government pushed Congress to adopt the Ley de Defensa Permanente de la Democracia (or ley maldita) which banned the Communists, struck their sympathizers from the rolls and banned them from running or holding office. The law, although approved by most parties (the right, most Radicals and Socialists, agrarians), stirred much controversy. The Socialists split over the issue (the anticommunists retaining the name PS, the pro-communists becoming the PSP), as did the Radicals but also the Conservatives (between ‘traditionalists’ and ‘social Christians’). After the fact, the President formed a Concentración Nacional cabinet with Radicals, Liberals, traditionalist Conservatives and the small Democratic Party. The Concentración Nacional right-wing alliance triumphed in the 1949 congressional elections over an opposition alliance of Falangists, Socialists, the PRD and the Agrarian Labour Party.
The Minister of Finance, Jorge Alessandri (another son of the former President), pursued orthodox austerity policies which displeased the Radicals who wanted pay increases for public servants (to reap their votes). When the Radicals backed a public servants’ strike, the Liberals and Conservatives left cabinet in early 1950. The President formed a government with the Social Christians and Falangists.
Mass Politics (1952-1970)
Carlos Ibáñez, who in 1948 had been involved in a military conspiracy, returned for one last shot at the presidency in 1952. Ibáñez, unlike in 1942, had little partisan backing – in his coalition, only the agrarians and the PSP were of any relevance – but he ran a populist and nationalist campaign in which he presented himself as the “general of hope” who would save Chile and root out corruption with his symbolic broom. He faced Arturo Matte, the joint Liberal and traditionalist Conservative candidate; Pedro Enrique Alfonso, backed by the Radicals, Social Christians and Falangists; and Salvador Allende, the candidate of the Frente del Pueblo alliance of the PS and the proscribed Communists. Appealing to all, but particularly the right and centre, Ibáñez won 46.8% against 27.8% for Matte, 20% for the Radical candidate and 5.5% for Allende.
Ibáñez’s second term was less successful than his first. By 1952-1958, Ibáñez was old and ailing, and delegated governance to his cabinet. He also lacked a strong support base in Congress, his supporters having failed to obtain a majority in the 1953 congressional elections despite doing fairly well. In 1955, the PSP withdrew from government and patched up with the PS. Things were complicated by rising inflation and the perceived failure of Radical ISI and desarrollismo. Ibáñez wanted to continue his populist policies, but was forced to look abroad for help for Chile’s economic woes. An American economic mission and the IMF prescribed neoliberal reforms, including easing trade barriers, removing subsidies and ending the automatic indexation of salaries. Ibáñez accepted only a few of their recommendations, but rising utility and public transit prices were unpopular. In Santiago, student protests against public transit fare hikes claimed 20 lives and material damages.
Some ibañistas still wanted Ibáñez to entrench himself as dictator, perhaps emulating his close ally Juan Perón in Argentina. Some military officers, perhaps pushed by Perón, created plans for a self-coup by the President and Ibáñez entertained them, but as always, he didn’t seem to care enough about anything to act on it.
Ibáñez had promised to repeal the ley maldita in his presidential campaign. He waited until the end of his term, in 1958, to actually do so. In the meantime, the Communists had moderated and talked of conquering power through democratic means – in alliance with the Socialists.
Ibáñez’s bizarre ‘general of salvation’ phase having ended in failure, Chile entered a period of polarized mass politics after 1958. This era was closely disputed elections, rising left-right polarization (especially after 1970), a growing electorate and a generally solid democracy. The 1958 election set the stage for the years to come.
Jorge Alessandri, the son of the former President and an independent right-winger, reluctantly agreed to run and received the backing of the right – the Liberals and Conservatives (and other minor parties), despite some Liberal misgivings about Alessandri’s candidacy. Alessandri went up against the left and the centre. In 1957, the Falangists and what remained of the Social Christians merged to form the Christian Democratic Party (Partido Demócrata Cristiano, PDC), a centrist and Christian democratic party which advocated a ‘third way’ between capitalism and socialism and was founded on social Christian principles, which had been influential in the Conservative Party since the early 1900s. Eduardo Frei Montalva, a co-founder of the Falange in the 1930s and former cabinet minister, was the PDC candidate. On the left, the Socialists and the Communists (now legalized) formed a broader coalition with smaller left-wing groups (including the PSP), known as the Frente de Acción Popular (FRAP). Salvador Allende, the long-time Socialist politician and medical doctor, was the FRAP’s candidate. The Radicals nominated Luis Bossay, who ran on a centrist platform supporting ISI and desarrollismo. The election was extremely narrow: Alessandri won with a weak plurality of 31.6%, while Allende, who had led a strong campaign and confirmed himself as the face of the Marxist left, placed a close second with 28.9%. Frei placed a solid third with 20.7%, while the declining Radicals won only 15.6%. An independent leftist candidate won 3.3%; Allende might have won without him, and he might have been planted by the right to weaken Allende.
Alessandri’s election was confirmed by Congress, with Radical support. The Radicals, although absent from Alessandri’s right-wing Liberal and Conservative cabinet (until 1961), eventually became close allies of Alessandri’s government. After the Liberals and Conservatives lost ground in the 1961 congressional elections, Radical support was indispensable to block PDC and FRAP opposition measures (with Radical support, the two opposition parties could override vetoes).
Alessandri proposed a classically conservative solution to Chile’s growing problems. Alessandri believed in free enterprise and free markets, and opposed the idea of a ‘paternalist state’. He felt that the state should limit itself to investing in infrastructures necessary to attract foreign and private investment. He reduced public spending, devalued the currency (fixed exchange rate with the dollar) and reduced tariffs. His policies, welcomed by the US but unpopular with Chilean lower classes, were somewhat successful in reducing inflation (down to 8% in 1961). However, the government’s mellow moves to convince American-owned copper companies to invest more of their profits locally were unsuccessful and the left demanded that copper be nationalized. Alessandri’s policies were complicated by the Great Chilean Earthquake (and tsunami) in May 1960 (the most powerful earthquake ever recorded, 9.5 magnitude) which killed over 3,000 people.
His government made some early moves on agrarian reform and launched large public works projects. Chilean agriculture remained quasi-feudal up into the 1960s, and both the right and left came to see the latifundios (and minifundios) as a drag on the economy. While the FRAP wanted fast-tracked agrarian reform, the right was more concerned about agrarian reform for the sake of increasing agricultural productivity, which had contracted since the 1950s. In 1962, Congress passed a law allowing the state to acquire land (and redistribute it) in return for compensation to landowners. The left found it ludicrously inadequate, but it was backed by the Catholic Church (which redistributed some of its own landholdings) and President Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress. With the Cuban revolution and the Cuban threat, the US started taking an active interest in Chile’s polarized and ideological politics.
As political interest shifted to Alessandri’s succession in 1964, the right formed the Democratic Front, composed of the Liberals, Conservatives and Radicals (who were the strongest party). The Democratic Front put forward the presidential candidacy of Julio Durán, a right-wing and anticommunist Radical, despite some Liberal and Conservative misgivings about bowing down to the Radicals’ numerical superiority. The conservative coalition emphasized anticommunism and the defense of democracy. In the 1963 municipal elections, the right won 46% of the vote, remaining the largest force ahead of the FRAP (30%) and PDC (23%). However, Durán’s candidacy took a hit in March 1964, following a by-election in the rural Conservative stronghold of Curicó. There, the PS-FRAP candidate won 39.7% against 33% for the Conservative candidate and 27.4% for the PDC. It became clear to the Liberals, Conservatives and the US that, with the non-leftist vote divided between Frei (PDC) and Durán (right), Allende could very well eek out a plurality win. The Liberals and Conservatives abandoned the Radicals and scurried to join up with Frei and the PDC, seen as the lesser evil against Allende.
Eduardo Frei, 1964 (source: PDC website)
The 1964 election was another election with stark differences between the candidates. Eduardo Frei, the PDC leader backed by the Liberals and Conservatives, campaigned on the platform of a “Revolution in Liberty” (a thinly-veiled jab at the left, depicted as revolution in dictatorship), promised agrarian reform and the “Chileanization” of the copper industry and rejected both economic liberalism and socialism. Allende, the FRAP candidate, wanted a pacific transition to socialism and a repudiation of capitalism and imperialism. Frei also led a ‘red scare’ campaign which played heavily on fears of “another Cuba” and the Soviet Union. The US took a strong and direct interest in the campaign; both because Frei was the last bulwark against “another Cuba” and his reformist Christian democratic agenda represented a promising alternative. The CIA spent over $2 million on Frei’s campaigned and paid for half of his campaign expenses, unbeknownst to the candidate. The Church Committee Report later showed that the US spent millions in covert actions in Chile to oppose the FRAP, with the US funding the PDC, the Radicals and the right-wing parties or funding various groups and media organizations.
It might have been overkill. Frei won a landslide, scoring 56.1% of the vote against 39.8% for Allende (still a sizable gain from 1958) and 5% for Durán, backed only by the Radicals. Frei’s landslide indicated the coalescing of the right around him, but also the popularity of his very reformist and ambitious agenda. Durán’s result, on the other hand, showed the repudiation of Alessandri’s conservative policies. In the 1965 congressional elections, only a few months after Frei’s election, the PDC won a landslide victory with 43.6% and an absolute majority in the Chamber of Deputies. The FRAP did well enough with some small gains and 27.8%, but the Liberals, Conservatives and Radicals collapsed completely. The Liberals and Conservatives both won less than 10% of the vote, and only 6 and 3 seats each.
In May 1966, after the 1965 defeat, the Liberals and Conservatives (and a small ibañista party) merged to form the National Party (Partido Nacional, PN). Some of the PN’s values, such as nationalism, praise for the armed forces, criticism of parliamentary democracy and parties and rhetorical orientation towards “the middle-classes” (instead of the upper classes and business) and “work ethic” would find their way towards Pinochet’s political thoughts in the 1970s and 1980s.
Frei put his promises into practice, and his record was not negligible but because the results of his reforms failed to live up to high expectations, the “Revolution in Liberty” was not hailed as a success and hit a dead end in 1970. Frei’s government expanded the availability of education, built public housing and encouraged the growth of social groups and cooperatives (in line with the PDC’s communitarian ideology and as a bid to counter the left’s power in unions). The US actively supported the regime, either through open aid from the US government or multilateral agencies (World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank) or through covert financial support for Chilean anti-leftist groups and parties.
Frei’s two most important actions, however, came with respect to the hot button issues of the day: copper and agrarian reform. In 1967, Congress passed two laws – one allowing for peasant unionization and farmers’ syndicates, the other an agrarian reform law which replaced Alessandri’s law. Frei’s agrarian reform law allowed for the expropriation of large estates which were too big (over 80 ha or its equivalent), owned by corporations, abandoned or improperly operated. 3.5 million ha were expropriated, and 28,000 new farm owners. But this number fell short of the PDC’s goal of 100,000 new owners by 1970, and the left continued to demand more action. In the countryside, landless peasants began occupying and seizing land.
Frei wanted to take a moderate approach to the issue of copper. The issue was not whether copper should be in Chilean hands – economic nationalism ran deep, even on the right – but how the state should proceed. Unwilling to create strains with foreign investors and the US, Frei chose a centrist solution: Chile would buy shares in the companies, created mixed companies, while the mining companies would compelled to invest the proceeds from the sale of shares in new processing facilities. In 1965, after the PDC made its “Chileanization” of copper the main issue in the congressional elections, Congress approved Frei’s Chileanization law. In 1969, the government reached an agreement with Anaconda and Kennecott, the two American giants (la gran minería). Chile bought a 51% share in Kennecott’s El Teniente mine and Anaconda’s Chuquicamata mine, with a minority share in Anaconda’s other mines. However, mining production only increased by 10% and most of the rising export profits (due to an increase in world prices) went to the companies.
Frei’s Revolution in Liberty ultimately failed because he was unable to deal with a bad economy and political opposition. Inflation increased rapidly under Frei’s presidency, and the slow pace of Frei’s reformist policies disillusioned those on the left who wanted radical and rapid change and met with the right’s opposition, who disliked Frei’s economic interventionism and alleged ‘anti-patriotism’. The military was showing signs of unease; in October 1969, Frei faced a brief military insurrection (Tacnazo) and was forced to concede pay increases to the generals. Politically, the right (which had backed Frei in 1964), became very critical opponents of Frei and the PDC. In the 1969 congressional elections, in which the PDC retained the most seats but lost its absolute majority, the PN was extremely critical of Frei, accusing him of being anti-patriotic. In that election, the PDC’s support fell to 30.8% while the FRAP won 30%, the PN 20.7% and the Radicals 13.5%. Within the PDC itself, the leftist faction in the party, led by Radomiro Tomic, opposed Frei’s moderate policies and advocated for a leftist agenda close to that of Allende.
Allende and the ‘transition to socialism’ (1970-1973)
The frontrunner for the 1970 presidential election was Jorge Alessandri, the former conservative president who was backed by the National Party and Democracia Radical, Julio Durán’s right-wing split off from the Radicals. However, Alessandri, who was 74 in 1970, led a low key campaign and there were rumours that he was senile and suffering from Parkinson’s. The US was apparently certain that Alessandri would win, so the US/CIA took no direct role in funding Alessandri’s campaign. However, declassified documents have shown that Alessandri lobbied the CIA for financial assistance. His campaign received about $350,000 from International Telephone & Telegraph (ITT), which owned the Chilean telephone company at the time. The CIA spent about a million altogether in various covert anti-Allende activities in 1970.
The leftist FRAP expanded in 1969 to create the Unidad Popular (Popular Unity, UP), which included the Radicals (who had moved left), the PDC leftist splitoff Movimiento de Acción Popular Unitaria (MAPU) and the left-nationalist Acción Popular Independiente (API). Allende, however, struggled to impose himself as the UP’s candidate after three successive defeats and Socialist doubts about the viability of Allende’s moderate vía chilena al socialismo. Indeed, in 1967, the more radical wing, led by Carlos Altomirano, had gained the upper hand in the PS which defined itself as Marxist-Leninist and recognized armed struggle as a legitimate means to obtain power. Allende’s more moderate, democratic and pacifist option won out and he ran for the presidency a fourth (and final) time. Allende denounced the failures of Frei’s Revolution in Liberty, which the left considered as woefully inadequate and too pro-American. Instead, the UP offered a “Chilean way to socialism” which was democratic, pacifist and gradual – the socialist state would come via the democratic process and the rule of law. The CIA claimed that Allende’s campaign received $350,000 from Cuba and a slightly larger amount from the KGB and the Soviet Union.
The PDC nominated Radomiro Tomic, the representative of the party’s leftist faction who ultimately very much resembled Allende in his proposals (nationalization of copper, anti-capitalist). Tomic’s candidacy precluded any deal with the right, which besides had little interest in repeating the last-ditch alliance of 1964.
On September 4, Allende won 36.6% against 35.3% for Alessandri and 28.1% for Tomic. Many have wondered if Allende would have won if Chile had had the traditional two-round system in 1970: Allende only won a plurality of the votes, and a smaller percentage than in the 1964 election. Even if Tomic’s voters might have leaned left, it is doubtful that Allende would have been elected to the presidency had there been a runoff election. The UP never won an absolute majority of the vote, even at its peak in the 1971 municipal elections (where it came extremely close to 50%).
Given that he lacked an absolute majority of the votes, the election would be decided by Congress which would pick between the top two finishers. This had turned into a formality which confirmed the candidate who had won the most votes, but the uniqueness of the situation and Washington’s opposition to Allende complicated the process. Shortly after the election, President Richard Nixon made it known to the CIA that an Allende government would be unacceptable to the US. The CIA presented two plans: Track I and Track II (FUBELT). Track I intended to convince PDC congressmen to vote for Alessandri, who would then resign and allow Frei to run for ‘reelection’ legally. However, Tomic (who had a secret pact with the UP) recognized Allende’s victory and Frei opposed this gambit and it fell through. With Track II, the US sought to directly organize a military coup which would prevent Allende from taking office. The plot was to kidnap General René Schneider, the legalist/constitutionalist Commander in Chief of the Chilean Army, attribute the plot to the left and provoke a coup. However, the plan failed on October 22, when the bungled kidnapping attempt actually resulted in the kidnappers killing Schneider. Allende was elected by Congress on October 24, with 153 votes to Alessandri’s 35.
Allende’s economic plan for a Chilean transition to socialism included the nationalization of strategic industries, the nationalization of copper, accelerated agrarian reform, price freeze, wage increases and constitutional reform to create a unicameral people’s legislature. At the outset, there was optimism and polarization was still fairly low, allowing for compromises with the PDC (the UP did not have even a plurality in Congress). Coal, steel, most private banks and other key industrial sectors were nationalized early in Allende’s presidency. Action was also quick to come on another landmark UP promise: the nationalization of copper. A law nationalizing la gran minería was passed unanimously by Congress in July 1971 – a sign of how deep economic nationalism ran in Chile, even on the right, and how Frei’s Chileanization policy had been perceived as a failure. The mining companies were to