1970 Chilean presidential election

1970 Chilean presidential election

4 September 1970

Nominee Salvador Allende Jorge Alessandri Radomiro Tomic Party Socialist Independent PDC Alliance Popular Unity PN–DR Popular vote 1,070,334 1,031,159 821,801 Percentage 36.61% 35.27% 28.11% Confirmation 153 35

President before election Eduardo Frei Montalva PDC Elected President Salvador Allende Socialist

Original ballot

Presidential elections were held in Chile on 4 September 1970. Salvador Allende of the Popular Unity alliance won a narrow plurality in the public vote, before having his victory confirmed by a Congressional vote after the Christian Democrats voted in favour of his candidacy.

Eduardo Frei Montalva and his Christian Democratic Party would later unite with Allende's opponents to form a congressional majority in an attempt to declare his presidency illegal in August 1973, catalyzing the military coup a few weeks later.

Electoral system

The election was held using the absolute majority system, under which a candidate had to receive over 50% of the popular vote to be elected. If no candidate received over 50% of the vote, both houses of the National Congress would come together to vote on the two candidates that received the most votes.

Campaign

Radomiro Tomic

Radomiro Tomic Romero was a major figure in the Christian Democratic Party and was ambassador to Washington under President Eduardo Frei. As a longtime friend of President Frei, he was appointed to ambassador to put him on the path to candidacy for the party in 1970. He was ideologically to the left of President Frei. He spent a large portion of his political career campaigning for a coalition between Christian Democrats and Leftists, despite most of both groups consistently not supporting his idea. He was known for being an egotistical, but nonetheless very charismatic speaker. His campaign benefited from the prestige of being ambassador to Washington, as well as his friendship with President Frei. However, it was hurt by his continued insistence on forming a coalition, as well as directly criticizing and attacking the Christian Democratic Party’s own bills and the Frei administration’s reforms. Voters often turned away from him due to his confusing campaign platform coming off as a more convoluted way of implementing socialism compared to instead electing Marxist Allende.

Jorge Alessandri

Prior to running in the 1970 election, Jorge Alessandri Rodríguez was a career politician and the 27^th President of Chile from 1958 to 1964, until the Chilean Constitution barred him from succeeding himself. He was the prior administration to Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei. His conservative Independent platform represented voters who were concerned by the reforms Frei had implemented over the course of his administration. Due to his prestige of formerly being the President of Chile, his campaign started out very strong. However, over time, he lost support for a variety of reasons.

One major factor was his age and health. At the time of the 1970 election, Alessandri was 74 years old and had experienced a variety of health issues, mental and physical, including on national TV. According to Sergio Riesenberg Alessandri's appearance on TV backfired and cost him the election. On the TV program Tres Bandas hosted by Gonzalo Bertrán there were two separate shots that showed him in bad light. In the first Alessandri said that he would be determined and that his "hands would not shake", subsequently the camera focused his hands that were actually shaking. In the second frame he was seen next to a stove warming his legs with a blanket despite being Spring. According to Riesenberg all this gave the public the impression of a man who was not longer "in an adequate age to become president".

Another major factor was his campaign being staffed mostly by amateurs, which led to the wasting of resources, creating of ineffective propaganda, issues mobilizing supporters, and trouble spreading a positive message to voters. US intelligence reports state that supporters believed that Alessandri could win using his name alone and spent most of the campaign attacking Frei’s reforms instead of directly promoting Alessandri. In the end, he placed in second, meaning that the congressional vote was between him and Allende.

International Involvement

Both the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the KGB spent significant amounts of money to influence the outcome of the election.

The CIA did not provide direct assistance to any candidate, as they had during the 1964 elections, but rather focused on anti-Allende propaganda, and the 40 Committee approved $435,000 for that purpose. In fact that represented only about half the money spent by the CIA to influence the election; the Church Committee put the total amount at between $800,000 and $1 million. The money approved by the 40 Committee was used in a "scare campaign" of posters and pamphlets linking an Allende victory with the violence and repression associated with the Soviet Union. Editorials and news stories reinforcing this message were also written with CIA guidance, especially in the newspaper El Mercurio, and disseminated throughout the national media. The goal was to contribute to and exploit the political polarization and financial panic of the period. Besides propaganda, the CIA also funded an attempt to splinter the Radical Party away from the Popular Unity coalition. This CIA campaign was very inefficient. CIA director Richard Helms complained that he was ordered by the White House to "beat somebody with nobody". Although the 40 Committee had decided not to support any candidate directly, the CIA did help US companies in funding candidates. In total, US businesses spend about $700,000; half of that sum was provided by the International Telephone & Telegraph Corporation (ITT).

KGB money was more precisely targeted. Allende made a personal request for Soviet money through his personal contact, KGB officer Svyatoslav Kuznetsov, who urgently came to Chile from Mexico City to help Allende. The original allocation of money for these elections through the KGB was $400,000, and an additional personal subsidy of $50,000 directly to Allende. It is believed that help from KGB was a decisive factor, because Allende won by a narrow margin of 39,000 votes of a total of the 3 million cast. After the elections, the KGB director Yuri Andropov obtained permission for additional money and other resources from the Central Committee of the CPSU to ensure Allende victory in Congress. In his request on 24 October, he stated that KGB "will carry out measures designed to promote the consolidation of Allende's victory and his election to the post of President of the country".

US president Richard Nixon was enraged by Allende's victory and the failure of the CIA's covert actions against him.

Congressional confirmation

As none of the candidates received an absolute majority of votes, the National Congress had to decide between the two candidates who had received the most votes, Allende and Alessandri. The precedent set on the three previous occasions this situation had arisen since 1932 was for Congress simply to choose the candidate with the highest number of votes; indeed, former President Alessandri had been elected in 1958 with 31.6% of the popular vote, defeating Allende.

In this case, however, there was an active campaign against Allende's confirmation by Congress, including an intensification of the CIA propaganda campaign to create concerns about Chile's future. During this period the CIA generated over 726 articles, broadcasts and similar items. The CIA also encouraged international economic pressure against Chile during this period. The United States also began to lay the groundwork for a military coup in this stage, authorizing the Ambassador to Chile to encourage this outcome with his contacts in the Chilean military.

Two days before the confirmation, Army Commander-in-Chief General René Schneider, was shot resisting a kidnap attempt by a group led by General Roberto Viaux. Hospitalized, he died of his wounds three days later. Viaux's kidnapping plan had been supported by the CIA. Schneider was a known defender of the "constitutionalist" doctrine that the army's role is exclusively professional, its mission being to protect the country's sovereignty and not to interfere in politics, and had expressed his deep opposition to organizing a coup d'état in case Salvador Allende was finally chosen by the National Congress as President. Schneider's death was viewed negatively by the public, and helped citizens and military support Allende, whom the National Congress finally chose on 24 October. On 26 October, President Eduardo Frei named General Carlos Prats as commander in chief of the army in replacement of René Schneider.

Allende's presidency was eventually ratified, after he agreed to sign a "Statute of Constitutional Guarantees", promising not to undermine the Chilean Constitution.

Results

Candidate	Party/Coalition	Votes	%	Result
Salvador Allende	Popular Unity (UP)	1,070,334	36.61	Congressional confirmation
Jorge Alessandri Rodríguez	National Party	1,031,159	35.27	Congressional confirmation
Radomiro Tomic	Christian Democratic Party	821,801	28.11
Total valid votes		2,923,294	100.00
Blank votes		7,045	0.23
Null votes		24,460	0.82
Total votes		2,954,799	100.00
Registered voters		3,539,747	83.47% turnout
Voting-age population		5,266,331	56.11% turnout
Source: Tricel; UNDESA.

Vote share Allende   36.61% Alessandri   35.27% Tomic   28.11%

Congressional confirmation

Candidate	Party/Coalition	Votes	%	Result
Salvador Allende	Popular Unity (UP)	153	78.46	President
Jorge Alessandri Rodríguez	Independent conservative	35	17.95
Blank votes		7	3.59
Total votes		195	100.00
Absent		5	2.50
Eligible voters		200	97.50% turnout
Source: Tricel.

See also

• History of Chile
• U.S. intervention in Chile
• Chilean coup of 1973

External links

• Archivos Internet Salvador Allende - A pro-Allende Spanish-language source, provides enormous day-by-day detail on the events between the election and Allende's inauguration as president. (in Spanish)