CHILEAN TRANSITION TO DEMOCRACY

The 'Chilean transition to democracy' (colloquially known in Chile as the ''Transición'') began on September 11, 1980, when a Constitution establishing a transition itinerary was approved in a plebiscite. From March 11, 1981 to March 11, 1990, several organic constitutional laws were approved leading to the final restoratuion of democracy. After the 1988 plebiscite, the 1980 Constitution, still in force today, was amended to ease provisions for future amendments to the constitution, create more seats in the senate, diminish the role of the National Security Council and equalize the number of civilian and military members (four members each).

Contents

The 1988 plebiscite and the reform of the Constitution

Context and causes of Pinochet's decision to follow the Constitution

The ''Concertación'': election of Patricio Aylwin

1993 election and trials of human rights violations during the dictatorship

1998 arrest of Pinochet in London and 2000 election of Ricardo Lagos

2005 reform of the 1980 Constitution

2006 election

2007

References

See also

The 1988 plebiscite and the reform of the Constitution

Voted under tight-control by the military in 1980, the Constitution of Chile legal dispositions were designed to lead to the convocation of all citizens to a plebiscite during which the Chilean people would ratify a candidate, proposed by the Chief of Staff of the Chilean Armed Forces and by the General Director of the Carabineros, the national police force, and who would become the President of Chile for an 8 years term. In 1980, this meant that the Chilean people was supposed to plebiscite Augusto Pinochet, assuring him popular legitimacy and the sanction of a vote. In case of a refusal by the people of the ''junta'' chosen candidate, the militaries would relinquish political control to the civilians, convoking the following year presidential and parliamentary democratic elections, and thus putting an end to the military government. Pinochet's government passed in 1987 a law allowing the creation of political parties and another law allowing the opening of national registers of voters. If the majority of the people voted "yes" to Pinochet's plebiscite, he would have remained in power for the next eight years, but Congress would have been elected and installed on March 11, 1990, as it happened.

Context and causes of Pinochet's decision to follow the Constitution

Among various causes to Pinochet's decision to resume this procedure, the situation in the Soviet Union, where Mikhail Gorbachev had initiated the glasnost and the perestroika democratic reforms, which would finally lead to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and to the official end of the Cold War, is clearly an important factor. The Cold War had important consequences in South America, considered by the United States to be a full part of the Western Bloc, called "free world", in contrast with the Eastern Bloc, a division born with the end of World War II and the Yalta Conference. Following the 1959 Cuban Revolution and the local implementation in several countries of Che Guevara's foco theory, the US waged a war in South America against the "Communists subversives," leading to support in Chile of the right-wing, which would culminate with Pinochet's coup in 1973 in Chile. In a few years, all of South America was covered by similar military dictatorships, called ''juntas''. In Paraguay, Alfredo Stroessner was in power since 1954; in Brazil, left-wing President João Goulart was overthrow by a military coup in 1964; in Bolivia, General Hugo Banzer overthrew leftist General Juan José Torres in 1971; in Uruguay, considered the "Switzerland" of South America, Juan María Bordaberry seized power in the June 27, 1973 coup. A "Dirty War" was waged all over the continent, culminating with Operation Condor, an agreement between security services of the Southern Cone and other South American countries to repress and assassinate political opponents. Militaries also took power in Argentina in 1976, and then supported the 1980 "Cocaine Coup" of Luis García Meza Tejada in Bolivia, before training the Contras in Nicaragua where the Sandinista National Liberation Front, headed by Daniel Ortega, had taken power in 1979, as well as militaries in Guatemala and in El Salvador. In the 1980s, however, the situation progressively evolved in the world as in South America, despite a renewal of the Cold War from 1979 to 1985, the year during which Gorbatchev replaced Konstantin Chernenko as leader of the USSR.
Another alleged reason of Pinochet's decision to call for elections was the April 1987 visit of Pope John Paul II to Chile, during which he visited Santiago, Viña del Mar, Valparaíso, Temuco, Punta Arenas, Puerto Montt and Antofagasta. According to George Weigel, he held a meeting with Pinochet during which they treated of the theme of the return to democracy. John Paul II would have allegedly pushed Pinochet to accept a democratic opening of the regime, and would even have called for his resignation.^[1] This has been contested however by critics, who claimed John Paul II never said a word concerning human right violations in Chile during his visit. The Polish Pope was a known opponent to Communism, and during his reign the Vatican had harshly condemned the Liberation theology, by the voice of Cardinal Ratzinger (current Pope Benedict XVI), then head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Whatever the case, political advertisement was legalized on September 5, 1987, and became a key element of the campaign for the "NO" to the referendum, which countered the official campaign which presaged a return to a Popular Unity government in case of a defeat of Pinochet. Finally, the "NO" to Pinochet won with 55,99% of the votes, against 44,1% of the votes. Pinochet, who, according to several informations, would have thought in not recognizing the results, finally decided to admit them and to continue with the Constitutional process. Thus presidential and legislative elections were called for the next year, while another plebiscite held in 1989 approved by 91,25% Constitutional reforms.

The ''Concertación'': election of Patricio Aylwin

Representing the ''Concertación'' coalition which supported the return to democracy, gathering the Christian Democrat Party (PDC), the Socialist Party (PS), the Party for Democracy (PPD) and the Social Democrat Radical Party (PRSD), Christian Democrat Patricio Aylwin won a sweeping victory in the first democratic elections, in December 1989, since the 1970 election won by Salvador Allende. Patricio Aylwin had gathered around him 3,850,023 votes (55.17%), while the center-right supermarket tycoon Francisco Javier Errázuriz, who represented the UCCP party, managed to take 15.05% of the vote, which had as main effects to lower right-wing candidate Hernán Büchi's score to 29.40% (approximatively 2 millions votes, almost half than Patricio Aylwin).
The ''Concertación'' coalition would dominate Chilean politics for the next two decades, with its most recent victory being the 2006 election of Socialist candidate Michelle Bachelet. It established in February 1991 the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, which released in February 1991 the Rettig Report on human rights violations during Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship. This report, contested by human rights NGOs and associations of political prisonners, counted 2,279 cases of "disappearances" which could be proved and registered. Of course, the very nature of "disappearances" made such investigations very difficult, while many victims were still intimidated by the authorities, and did not dare go to the local police center register themselves on lists, since the police officers were the same than during the dictatorship. The same problem arose, several years later, for the Valech Report, released in 2004 and which counted almost 30,000 victims of torture, among testimonies from 35,000 persons. However, the Rettig Report did list important detention and torture centers, such as the Esmeralda ship, the Víctor Jara Stadium, Villa Grimaldi, etc. The registering of victims of the dictatorship, and then, in the 2000s, trials of militaries guilty of human right violations, would dominate the struggle for the recognition of crimes committed during the dictatorship by human rights NGOs and associations of political prisonners, whom many resided in exile.

1993 election and trials of human rights violations during the dictatorship

Main articles: Chilean presidential election, 1993

Preparing for the 1993 election, the Concertación held primaries in May 1993, opposing on its left-wing Ricardo Lagos (PPD) to Christian-Democrat Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, (PDC), the son of former President Eduardo Frei Montalva (1911-1982, President from 1964 to 1970). Eduardo Frei won these primaries by a large majority of 63%. The right-wing, grouped in the Alliance for Chile, also held primaries opposing Sebastián Piñera (National Renewal, RN, the largest right-wing party at the time), who had supported the "NO" during the 1988 plebiscite on the return to civilian rule, to Arturo Alessandri Besa, former member of the National Party (PN, opposed to Eduardo Frei in the 1970 presidential election) and currently representant of the Independent Democrat Union (UDI). Alessandri won those, and thus represented the Alliance for Chile against the Concertación. Others candidates include
José Piñera, former Minister in the early 1980s who had implemented the law granting property of copper to the Chilean Armed Forces, and future co-chairman of the 1995 Project on Social Security Choice of the Cato Institute, a libertarian US think-tank, presented himself as an independent (6%), ecologist Manfred Max-Neef (5,55%), representant of the ''Left-Wing Democratic Alternative'' (which gathered the Communist Party (PCC), MAPU (part of the Popular Unity coalition of Allende) and the Christian Left Party) Eugenio Pizarro Poblete (less than 5%) and finally Cristián Reitze Campos of the left-wing Humanist Party (1,1%). Frei Ruiz-Tagle finally won the election in the first turn, held in December 1993, with an absolute majority of almost 58%, and more than 4 millions votes against Arturo Allesandri who gathered around 1,700 000 votes (24.4%). Eduardo Frei took office in March 1994 and presided for a 6-year term, until 2000. During his term, it was not possible to judge any military for his role during the dictatorship, while large sectors of the Chilean society remained ''Pinochetista''.

1998 arrest of Pinochet in London and 2000 election of Ricardo Lagos

Following an agreement between Pinochet and Andrés Zaldívar Larraín, president of the Senate, the latter voted to abolish the date of 11 September as a National Holiday which celebrated the 1973 coup. Supporters of Pinochet had blocked until then any such attempt.^[2] The same year, Pinochet traveled to London for an operation. But under orders of Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, he was arrested there, lifting world-wide attention, not only because of the past history of Chile and South America, but also because this was one of the first arrest of a dictator based on the universal jurisdiction principle. Pinochet tried to defend himself by referring to the State Immunity Act of 1978, an argument rejected by the British justice. However, UK Home Secretary Jack Straw took the responsibility to release him on medical grounds, and refused to extradite him to Spain. Thereafter, Pinochet returned to Chile in March 2000. Upon descending the plane on his wheelchair, he quickly stood up and saluted the cheering crowd of supporters, including an army band playing his favorite military march tunes, which was awaiting him at the airport in Santiago. President Ricardo Lagos, who had just sworn in on March 11, said the retired general's televised arrival had damaged the image of Chile, while thousands demonstrated against him.^[3]
Representing the ''Concertación'' coalition for democracy, Ricardo Lagos had won