Chile's Lingering Authoritarian Legacy

Chile's Lingering Authoritarian Legacy

felipe aguero

T

he Concertacion de Partidos por la Democ-racia, the coalition of center-left parties that has governed Chile since the resumption of democracy in 1990, is now halfway through its second administration, led by President Eduardo Montalva. The previous Concertacion government, which was headed by President Patricio Aylwin, successfully concluded its term in 1994 after steering the country away from the uncertainties of the initial years of redemocratization. Aylwin's government was hailed for its ability to promote consensus, an ability that allowed it to overcome the many hurdles encountered in the tense relations with a military that resisted full accommodation to a new civilian-military balance and that reacted often in a semirebellious fashion, to the pursuit of justice in the area of human rights.

Success was also largely based on sound economic policy that adhered to the market orientation firmly initiated during General Augusto Pinochet's 17 years of military rule. During Aylwin's administration gdp per capita leapt for the first time over the levels attained in the early 1970s. Growth was accompanied by an effort at erasing the gross income inequalities disregarded during the Pinochet years. The new government has seen economic growth intensify, endowing the Concertacion with a record that is hard to beat.

the ECONOMY FORGES AHEAD. ..

During the eight years of government by the post-Pinochet coalition, gdp has expanded at an average annual rate of 6.7 percent. Inflation has declined

feupe aguero is an assistant professor of political science at Ohio State University. He is the author of Soldiers, Civilians, and Democracy: Post-Franco Spain in Comparative Perspective (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), and coeditor, with Jeffrey Stark, of Fault Lines of Democratic Governance in the Americas (Miami, Fla.: North-South Center Press, University of Miami, 1998).

from 27 percent in 1990 to under 6 percent in 1997, and the population living below the poverty line fell from 39 percent in 1990 to 23 percent in 1996. Gross domestic investment and saving rates, at about 25 and 28 percent respectively, are the highest in the region. Real per capita income has increased over 50 percent in the last eight years, and foreign direct investment has continued to grow, as have foreign reserves (Chile was spared the negative effects of the Mexican peso crisis of 1994, which had a severe impact on the Argentine economy).

Chile has also vigorously pursued trade agreements with different regions across the world. Interest in joining Mercosur, the prosperous Common Market of the South formed by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay in 1991, had been postponed in the hope of obtaining membership in the North American Free Trade Agreement (nafta). But the Clinton administrations reluctance to seek and inability to obtain fast track authorization to negotiate Chile's entrance to nafta after it was invited in 1994 led Chile to become an associate member of Mercosur.

. Opting for a more institutionalized economic connection with its Latin neighbors makes a lot of sense. Chile has increased exports to its nine main Latin American partners by 50 percent since 1990;

these now account for 17.5 percent of its total exports. Also, outside investments in the region by Chilean companies amount to about $10 billion, equivalent to 15 percent of the country's gdp. Chile has also become a full member of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, which brings together the economies of the Pacific Basin, and is moving toward a trade agreement with the European Union.

.. .BUT THE POLITICAL TRANSITION?

With its focus on tangible accomplishments, Fret's administration has been depicted by its lead-

66

Chile’s Lingering Authoritarian Legacy • 67

ing officials as the modernization administration. In contrast, Aylwins government is depicted as a transition government because of its main objective of securing the stability of Chile's new democracy. Without the uncertainties that disturbed Aylwin's term, the coalition under can concentrate on pragmatic tasks that aid the pursuit of ambitious development goals. But Aylwin administration officials were also eager to leave transition tasks behind and to move to grander development objectives;

indeed, they declared the transition over in 1992.

One significant difference between the two administrations has been relations with the military. During Fret's term there have not been any quasi rebellions of the kind that took place several times during Aylwin's government over discontent with human rights and other issues the military deemed threatening. Under relations between Defense Minister Edmundo Perez Yoma and Pinochet have been smooth, so much so that Pinochet declared Perez Yoma the "best" minister in the cabinet and awarded him the army's highest decoration. The military has been allowed to proceed with its modernization and acquisition plans, and human rights issues have receded.

A smooth transition in the military leadership began last October with the designation of the next head of the army, General Ricardo Izurieta, who will take over no later than March 1998 when General Pinochet steps down after nearly 25 years in that position. The smoothness was broken only by the president's decision not to promote Brigadier Jaime Lepe to general. Lepe is accused by Spanish courts and Chilean sources of involvement in the assassination of a Spanish citizen following the 1973 coup. The Izurieta appointment, along with that of a new head of the navy, Admiral Jorge Arancibia, has led to satisfaction across the political spectrum, smce it signals the beginning of a less politicized military leadership made up of professionals who held less visible responsibilities in the period of military rule.

However, this smooth transition in military leadership was countered by another reality. This reality—the enduring power of the military and strengthened opposition from the right—has had a humbling effect on Concertacion officials, who recently admitted that the transition to democracy is far from over. Democratization will not be complete until the government coalition overcomes the opposition's resistance to reforming the constitution in order to eliminate authoritarian legacies. Moreover, a new sense of malaise has emerged, the result of the seemingly intractable state of income inequal

ity and the withdrawal of support for political institutions expressed as declining political participation.

the AUTHORITARIAN-DEMOCRATIC FISSURE

The right's opposition to reforms—including the president's powers over military appointments, the composition of the National Security Council and the Constitutional Court, electoral law, and other aspects of the constitution—remains unabated. Repeated attempts at reform by both Aylwin's and Fret's administrations have run into persistent opposition from the right.

For a moment, development of a "liberal" right within the leadership of Renovacion Nacional (National Renewal, or rn), the largest party in the opposition bloc, gave hope that an agreement on at least some of these reforms would be possible. One reform, the elimination of the constitutional clause allowing nonelected senators, would have erased a significant legacy imposed by the Pinochet regime. Although agreement was reached in mid-199 7 with RN leaders, they were unable to line up the party's senators behind the accord and the reform attempt was killed. This and previous failed efforts to rid the system of the institutional authoritarian legacy revealed serious rifts within rn between the "liberal" leadership of the party and those rn senators who belong to an authoritarian-conservative tradition with support in rural regions.

The December 11, 1997, elections for Congress made things much harder for the "liberal" right, and for any hopes of reform. The Union Democratica Independiente (Independent Democratic Union, UDi), the other party in the electoral pact of the right, which has remained closely identified with the legacy of Pinochet, was strengthened relative to the rn and significantly increased its share of seats in the Senate. Among its new senators are former hard-line Pinochet ministers and even a former junta member. To make matters worse, General Pinochet has decided to become a senator once he leaves the leadership of the army in or before March 1998, making use of a clause in his 1980 constitution. He will be joined by the outgoing head of the navy, along with three other former commanding generals of the armed services. With this hard-core Pinochet-identified opposition in the Senate, the chances of any major reform eliminating authoritarian legacies are nil.

This postelectoral landscape confirms a major cleavage that has marked electoral competition since the resumption of democracy. The electoral rules forced on the new democracy in 1990 by the

68 • CURRENT HISTORY • February 1998

Pinochet regime determined the formation of electoral pacts, one of the right, another of the center-left. These two pacts broke with the multiparty competition of right, left, and center that had prevailed before military rule.

The competition between two major pacts has effectively created a two-bloc system. But this organization of political competition has been more than just the result of a superimposed electoral system; its persistence and ability to organize the right and center-left for every congressional, presidential, and municipal election since 1990 reflects the perseverance of the authoritarian-democratic cleavage that emerged in the struggle for democracy against the Pinochet regime.

This cleavage effectively operates behind the consensus that has been forged around the success of the economic model. Competition has been moderated by this success, which has helped to largely eliminate the polarization that characterized Chile's pre-Pinochet democracy. Moderation and the kind of centripetally oriented competition that has prevailed since 1990 cannot, however, mask the deep divisions that continue to divide the political spectrum.

^ There have been, nonetheless, some important areas of agreement, such as the partial and long overdue reforms introduced in the judiciary. The opposition thwarted attempts made during the Aylwin administration to modernize the judiciary and generate new mechanisms for appointment and control of the courts. But in 1997 Congress agreed to create an office of the attorney general, which should initiate global reforms in the penal process. And on December 13, 1997, a joint session of Congress overwhelmingly ratified a constitutional reform that establishes a new mechanism for the appointment of justices to the Supreme Court with the participation of the executive and the Congress, expands its members from 17 to 21, and mandates the inclusion of 5 justices that do not come from within the judiciary. Congress's new configuration since the December elections has, however, toned down optimism in this and other areas.

the CONCERTACION AND ITS DISCONTENTS

The Concertacion's successes in the economy and modernization have been accompanied by growing discontent. One source of this is the inability to address the distributional problems that economic growth has made apparent. Social policy has made it possible to reduce the percentage of the population living below the poverty line, although levels of

extreme poverty remain high. Natural disasters, such as the earthquakes that periodically shake different parts of the country, have revealed the significant poverty of parts of the Chilean population otherwise ignored by the layers of progress and the images of modernization that pervade the middle classes and opinionmakers. In addition, income inequality has continued to grow, placing Chile among the historically worst cases of inequality in Latin America:

Brazil, Guatemala, and Honduras. The freest and most competitive economy in Latin America has become also one of the most inegalitarian.

This is undoubtedly a source of frustration for many of the supporters of Concertacion. While parties and electoral blocs include voters from across income categories, there is no question that a larger share of the lower income groups support the government coalition. Dissatisfaction has resulted in increased labor conflict, which, according to a recent study issued by the International Labor Organization, has expanded in the past three years. Over 335,000 workers participated in illegal stoppages or strikes in 1996. Greater mobilization by unions and other organizations has also been observed. Members of left organizations outside the Concertacion, primarily the Communist Party, have been elected to head student organizations at the largest universities. Also, think tanks close to business and the right have begun to warn about a sense of malaise and the realization that the "easy stage" in Chile is now over.

There is also a growing dissatisfaction with political parties and politics in general. Surveys conducted by the Centro de Estudios Publicos reveal that those who do not identify with any party increased from 21 percent in December 1991 to 42 percent in November 1996. Surveys also show that only 13 percent of respondents evaluate parties as doing well or very well, with most placing them at the bottom of the scale. Politics has been less and less the subject of conversation among family, friends, and co-workers during electoral campaigns. A perception of parties as purely pragmatic power machines, devoid of the kinds of principles that organized competition in the 1988 plebiscite and the first democratic elections, and ignorant of demands in the areas of human rights, the environment, equity, and others, has sustained that decline.

what THE DECEMBER ELECTIONS MEAN

The December congressional elections provided emphatic expression of this dissatisfaction. First, a vastly publicized preelection voter registration cam-

Chile's Lingering Authoritarian Legacy • 69

[There is a] realization that the "easy stage” in Chile is now over.

paign failed to excite over a million Chileans among the newly eligible voting-age population. Second, among those registered, 13.7 percent abstained from voting. Moreover, 13.5 percent of votes cast were voided, a number approximately 6 percent higher than in the previous election. In all, about 3.7 million people, of a total of 9.6 million of voting age, chose not to express any preference. Government officials promptly recognized this as a protest vote.

It is too early to discern fully the meaning of this vote; it may be a reaction to a sense of a lack of alternatives, that is, that votes will have little impact on policy, either because the electoral system is so structured, or because the direction of social and economic policy is so determined that it is perceived to be unchangeable. However, it should not be ruled out that voided ballots may reflect voter resentment at mandatory voting. Pinochet's constitution—which is still in effect—and accompanying laws established that while registration is not mandatory, voting is.

Beside the decline in participation and the protest vote, the most salient feature of the election was the strengthening of the right, especially the hard-line sectors within it. The Union por Chile pact, which includes the udi and the rn, obtained 36 percent of the vote, up 3 points from the 1993 congressional elections. But when combined with another list of independents on the right, the right's total share was slightly over 38 percent. Within the pact rn maintained its predominance with 17 percent of the vote, and udi increased from 12 to 14 percent, accounting for most of the pact's growth. Independents and others within the pact obtained 5 percent of the vote.

Despite the rn's larger share of the vote, the momentum is with the udi, which increased its number of senators from 3 to 9 while the number ofRN senators dropped from 11 to 7; this makes the udi the second-largest party in the Senate. The right gained 1 senator for a total of 18. Of these, only 2 belong to the "liberal" wing of the right; the rest are firm opponents of any reform to Pinochet's constitution. In the Chamber of Deputies the right opposition fell from 50 to 48 seats; the udi increased its number of deputies from 16 to 21, while the number of rn deputies fell from 33 to 25.

On the left outside the government coalition, the pact led by the Communist Party received 7.5 percent of the vote, up from the 4.8 percent it obtained

in 1993. The Humanist Party obtained 3 percent, a significant increase from previous elections. The left is thus definitely a new factor in electoral politics, although it has failed to gain congressional representation since it is not part of the two largest vote-getting blocs.

The Concertacion, which is formed by the Christian Democratic Party (pdc), the Party for Democracy (ppd), the Socialist Party (PS), and the Social Democratic Radical Party (prsd), saw its share of the vote decline 5 points from the last election to 51 percent. This decline was almost completely attributable to the Christian Democrats, whose share fell from 27 percent in 1993 to 23 percent. The Socialists maintained their share at 11 percent while the ppd increased slightly to 12.5 percent. The most significant feature of these results is that the ppd and the ps now jointly have a slightly larger share of the electorate than the pdc.