Pinochet Seems to Be Already Campaigning for a New Term

Majestic music soars in the background as an announcer’s voice intones, “Step by step, with love, we Chileans have been building Chile.”

Images of factories, farms and highways flash across the television screen, then the smiling face of President Augusto Pinochet beams forth.

“Chile,” the announcer says, “walks with firm steps toward national unity.”

The government TV spot, repeated day and night on all Chilean channels, looks like slick campaign propaganda. And that is exactly what it is, political analysts say.

Chile is preparing for a national plebiscite to decide who will govern this nation of 12 million people after Pinochet’s term ends in March, 1989. By most accounts, the 71-year-old general has no intention of stepping down, and his campaign for a new term is under way.

Moderate opposition forces are gearing up for a counter-campaign aimed at giving Chile its first civilian government since Pinochet took power in 1973 after a bloody coup.

Chile’s constitution, custom-designed for Pinochet in 1980, says the plebiscite will be held sometime before March, 1989. At stake is an eight-year presidential term that is to end in 1997.

Chileans will vote “yes” or “no” on a single presidential candidate, to be chosen unanimously by the four commanders of the armed services and the police. If the voters say “no,” free and open elections will be held within a year, according to the constitution.

Pinochet is chief of the army, Adm. Jose Toribio Merino heads the Navy, Gen. Fernando Matthei is chief of the air force and Gen. Rodolfo Stange leads the police. A foreign political analyst said that the first objective of Pinochet’s presidential campaign is to convince the other three commanders “that they have no alternative but to pick him.”

Merino, Matthei and Stange all said in separate statements recently that the best presidential candidate would be a civilian. According to the foreign analyst, those statements reflect opinion among the high command of the services and among most Chileans.

Independent opinion surveys in recent months have shown public support for Pinochet to be no more than about 20% of those polled.

Pinochet has not directly confirmed that he wants a new term, but some of his public declarations leave little doubt. Referring in June to his “task as government leader and soldier,” he assured supporters of his “undying will to serve Chile and you as long as God gives me life and help.”

The Communist Party of Chile recently published a manifesto rejecting the plebiscite, with or without Pinochet as the candidate, and calling for popular confrontation with the regime in September.

“We explicitly reaffirm our policy of mass popular rebellion, which leads to a break with fascist law and order and offers an effective road to end the tyranny,” the Communist document said.

Ricardo Rivadeneira, president of a new conservative party called National Renovation, said the Communists’ policies would reinforce Pinochet’s candidacy.

“There is no better war candidate than Pinochet,” Rivadeneira said.

National Renovation recently postponed a decision on whether to support Pinochet as a candidate for the plebiscite. Rivadeneira said it may be possible for the party and the government to agree on a civilian candidate that both can support, but that this “depends a lot on developments.”

So far, the only organized support for keeping Pinochet in power comes from a new right-wing party called the National Advance. Patricio Vildosola, the party’s treasurer, said its goal is “the continuation of the regime, with his excellency the president of the republic heading it.”

Asked in an interview about the relationship between Pinochet and National Advance, Vildosola said, “He has gone to all the rallies we have invited him to.”

In the middle of Chile’s political spectrum is the Christian Democratic Party, once the strongest political force in the country. Andres Zaldivar, a Christian Democratic leader, said he believes chances are “eight or nine out of 10” that Pinochet will persuade his fellow military commanders to nominate him for the presidential plebiscite.

Like many Chileans, Zaldivar predicts that the plebiscite will be held Sept. 11, 1988, the 15th anniversary of Pinochet’s coup.

The Chilean opposition, including the Christian Democrats, has long been in disarray because of disagreement over strategy and leadership for confronting Pinochet. Zaldivar said he hopes that his party and others will soon begin a concerted campaign to defeat Pinochet in the plebiscite.

Part of the campaign will be preparing Chileans to “mobilize against fraud,” Zaldivar said, because fraud is likely if Pinochet should need it to win.

“Pinochet is determined to stay in power,” Zaldivar said.