Regime’s Election Tactics Anger Chile’s Opposition

With a media barrage and the muscle of incumbency, Chile’s military government is mounting a deft campaign to extend its rule for eight more years.

An alliance of opposition parties complains that abuses of power abound in the government’s drive to attract support in the coming yes-or-no plebiscite on the military’s nominee for president.

Loyalists shrug off the charges, saying the government is simply meeting the needs of the average Chilean, as it says it has done since taking power 15 years ago, and is informing the people of the nation’s achievements.

Both sides remain equally certain of victory in the plebiscite, expected to take place in early October. Voters will say yes or no to a single candidate, to be chosen by the leaders of the military branches in a meeting Aug. 30.

That candidate is almost certain to be President Augusto Pinochet, the general who was put in power by a violent military coup against the Communist-backed coalition of President Salvador Allende in 1973. If the military’s candidate is defeated, a multiparty election for the presidency will be held in late 1989, setting the stage for a return to democracy.

The opposition’s complaints focus on two points: the deluge of pro-government propaganda, especially on television, despite a ban on campaign advertising, and the alleged manipulation of public benefits, including subsidy programs and even public housing, to entice voter support.

The No campaign, as the opposition is known, has been far more vociferous in criticizing the glaring inequality of publicity than in denouncing possible misuse of government programs, which remains undocumented and angrily denied by Yes supporters.

Each night, government and private television channels carry advertisements bought by the government. Some show new roads, while others cite advances in industry. One popular slogan: “Yes, we are millions.” Billboards and graffiti make similar proclamations, usually ending in the affirmative: “Si!”

The Yes movement maintains that the government’s ads make no reference to the plebiscite.

“What this does is underline the works of the government, and these are not minor,” said Carlos Cabello, national coordinator of the civic committees working for a Yes victory. “The television is not saying, ‘Pinochet, Yes,’ but ‘Democracy, Yes.’ What is the opposition going to say--’Democracy, No?’ ”

Genaro Arriagada, national director of the No campaign, which groups 16 parties from center-right to left, said the government buys an average of 27 TV spots per night and outspends the No campaign for publicity by a 30-to-1 margin.

The Yes campaign, Arriagada said, is attempting to “humanize Pinochet”--for example, he now wears civilian clothes rather than his army uniform when attending well-staged events nationwide.

The government’s publicity edge, as well as state-of-emergency restrictions on mass outdoor rallies, have forced the opposition to rely far more heavily on local organization, including door-to-door campaigning.

“In personal contact, we are much stronger than the Yes,” Arriagada said. “They compensate with propaganda for what they lack in contact.”

350 Civic Committees

Cabello offers a contrasting portrait of the Yes campaign, saying that 350 civic committees have been formed nationwide since August, 1987, for intensive local canvassing. Loyalists also are forming groups of athletes, teachers, women and union members to work for a Yes victory, he said.

Andres Chadwick, an executive committee member of the Independent Democratic Union, a right-wing movement close to Pinochet that is now registering as a party, charged that the No campaign has shown little imagination. He said that even though ads regarding the plebiscite are forbidden, opposition parties had not bought television time to tout their achievements, as the government has done.

One of the few interesting efforts by the No campaign, Chadwick said, was a giant sign on a wall in downtown Santiago proclaiming “NO,” followed, in tiny letters, by the words “to pollution.”

Chadwick also noted that after the candidate is nominated, the government will require all television stations to provide 15 minutes a day to each side to state its case until three days before the referendum. Further, he said, Chile has a vocal opposition press that covers No campaign events and declarations.

Opposition leaders reply that 30 journalists face charges for articles said to have offended the military government and that television stations have refused to accept even non-plebiscite advertising or to carry much news on the No campaign.

Western diplomats concede the government an overwhelming propaganda advantage but say there is little evidence of pressuring or enticing voters by withholding or offering assistance, as suggested by some opposition publications.

“You can’t assume they are not using all the conventional tactics. That would imply a level of political morality that is not traditional in Chile, or many other countries,” one envoy said. But he and others said it seemed to be a traditional use of incumbency--administering public programs and receiving some publicity in the process--rather than doing so in return for a vote.

‘A Country of Laws’

Chadwick said that “we would never fool anybody by trying to buy his vote with an offer for a house. This is a country of laws, where respect for personal rights is strong. A person who gets a house is not going to lose it by not voting yes.”

Asked about the recent lowering of the value-added tax, a form of sales tax, from 20% to 16%, he said: “What do you want us to do? Would it be better not to do things that are good for the people, especially the poor, because they might be perceived as political?”

Arriagada, of the No campaign, said the government has 14 different subsidy programs for the needy that he said have expanded “because poverty has grown so much” under Pinochet.

“They can say, we’ll build a new poblacion (urban settlement), or give a new subsidy to win more support,” Arriagada said. “But the people know they haven’t done so for the last 15 years.”

Cabello, who works in the construction business, countered that the government has built 980,000 houses since 1973, 60,000 of them this year.

“When they build a development, they make it available to everyone. They don’t ask whether you are Yes or No,” he said. “For the first time in Chile’s history, these programs have not been abused for political purposes, as they were in the past by all other ruling parties.”