Chilean Opposition Wins Presidency by a Landslide

In the first direct elections since a 1973 military coup, Chileans on Thursday gave a landslide presidential victory to the opposition coalition that led Chile back to its traditional democracy.

With 93% of the vote counted, Patricio Aylwin, leader of a 17-party center-left alliance, had 55.2% of the valid ballots in elections to end South America’s last dictatorship.

Hernan Buchi, the conservative former finance minister for lame-duck President Augusto Pinochet, trailed with 29.4%, and right-wing businessman Francisco Javier Erraruziz had 15%.

When word spread that Aylwin had easily won the majority he needed to avoid a runoff, supporters poured into the streets of the capital to celebrate with cheers and fireworks. The group, which calls itself the “rainbow coalition,” also hoped to win congressional races by an equally large margin. Results are due today.

“Today, consciously, freely and responsibly, the people of Chile have once again taken in their hands their destiny and their future,” Aylwin said in a victory speech from the balcony of a downtown hotel to a jubilant crowd of several thousand.

Buchi, conceding early in the evening, said he was gratified that the opposition had largely embraced the free-market ideals that have brought substantial prosperity to Chile. He then visited Aylwin to promise a constructive opposition.

With nearly all votes counted, Aylwin had 3,577,669 votes to 1,901,668 for Buchi and 998,786 for Erraruziz. Ninety-one percent of those eligible had registered--by far the highest percentage ever in Chile.

Voting was overwhelmingly peaceful and cheerful, with none of the tension that filled a plebiscite campaign in October, 1988, when Pinochet was defeated in his quest for another eight years in office.

In a lone reported violent incident, a man shot and killed a policeman guarding a polling station in a poor Santiago suburb and fled on foot. Politicians from right to left condemned the killing, saying that it cast a shadow over a joyous event for a nation learning to leave behind two decades of conflict in favor of accommodation and compromise.

In addition to choosing a president for the next four years, the voters were also electing 38 senators and 120 deputies.

Chileans were taking part in a presidential election for the first time since 1970. That election brought President Salvador Allende into office at the head of the Marxist-dominated Popular Unity coalition with only 36% of the vote.

After three years of strikes and violence, Pinochet and other military officers led a bloody coup that overthrew Allende in September, 1973. An estimated 1,500 people were killed, and years of repression followed under Pinochet’s firm rule.

Aylwin, a lawyer and son of a Supreme Court justice who initially supported the coup, became active in the movement seeking a return to democracy, which culminated in Pinochet’s plebiscite defeat. The coalition, ranging from Aylwin’s centrist Christian Democrats to most of the now-splintered elements of Allende’s old Chilean Socialist Party, defeated Pinochet by 55% to 43% in the plebiscite, then managed to set aside their differences and put up a common list of candidates and a single platform for the present elections.

Pinochet kept virtually out of sight during the campaign. Even after he leaves the presidency, the 71-year-old general will retain command of the army. The constitution prohibits the president from removing him or the other military commanders for eight years. Aylwin has said Pinochet should step down.

Casting his ballot early in the day, Pinochet said: “I am satisfied. It marks the end of a mission. Today I say, ‘Mission completed.’ ”

Pinochet, a strong anti-Marxist, contended during his years in power with a sporadic insurgency by elements of the far left, which carried out attacks that included an attempt on Pinochet’s life in 1986.

Interior Minister Carlos Caceres said Wednesday that Pinochet’s government had fulfilled its 1973 promise to restore democracy to Chile. Reflecting the government’s view, Caceres said the military had rescued Chile from chaos and, step by step, returned it to civilian rule.

Many observers have said it was a mistake for the right to nominate Buchi, a boyish, 40-year-old technocrat, because he is so closely identified with Pinochet.

Demands by some parties for bringing to trial the people responsible for 700 “disappearances” could complicate the next government’s relations with the armed forces. Aylwin’s position is that all crimes should be investigated and that once the truth is known, pardons can be considered. However, few expect the government to imprison military officers.

Aylwin said Monday, “We want to balance the virtues of justice with the virtues of prudence.”

Pinochet and his four-man military junta have enacted a number of controversial laws in recent months designed to limit the next government’s power. Among other things, control over monetary and military policy will be severely restricted. The opposition alliance sought strong support for its congressional candidates to enable it to overturn these laws.

National Renovation, the main conservative party, sided with the opposition coalition in negotiations with Pinochet over those laws. Chilean analysts said this augered well for the next government’s ability to negotiate differences and limit Pinochet’s influence.

Buchi said that regardless of the outcome, “we should all celebrate Thursday as the day of the victory of democracy.”

During the campaign, however, he consistently reminded voters that the opposition coalition includes many Allende-era politicians, including Socialist candidates who once embraced Marxism-Leninism and Communists running as independents. But the opposition coalition argued that the left has moderated its views in recent years.

Buchi’s campaign manager, Pablo Baraona, acknowledged that recent changes in Eastern Europe had worked against Buchi by easing public concern about the influence and stances of the left-wing parties.

The Buchi campaign tried to capitalize on Chile’s economic growth in a part of the word where economic decline and hyper-inflation are widespread. With free-market policies, the government expanded exports, kept inflation below 20% a year--a fraction of the level elsewhere in the region--and achieved steady growth for five straight years. Last year the economy expanded by 7.4%, and surged at a rate of 10% for the first half of this year.

The opposition argued that these advances had come at the expense of workers’ wages.

“There are people who are earning too much money in this country,” Aylwin said the other day. “There may have to be smaller profit margins for businesses.”

Yet he emphasized that the coalition did not intend to move far from the current economic program, preferring gradual change. Aylwin also attempted to hold down the expectations of the workers and the poor. The coalition has already begun negotiations with unions to restrain demands in an effort to prevent the economy from overheating.

Juan Somavia, an opposition organizer, said Chile has an opportunity to show that democracy and economic prosperity are not mutually exclusive in Latin America.

“In most countries,” he said, “democracy arrived with the need to tighten the belt dramatically. We have an unusual situation: We will be able to loosen the belt--a tiny bit.”