The Alliance of Parties for Democracy and its role in democratic transformation in Chile 1988-1990

Abstract

This survey examines, with research and analysis, the pivotal and pioneering role played by the Alliance of Parties for Democracy in leading the historic political transformation in Chile, during the critical and very critical transitional period precisely confined between the years 1988 and 1990. The basic research problem is crystallized in a central question that revolves around how a broad frontal coalition and a completely ideologically heterogeneous political bloc succeeded, as it brought together under its umbrella disparate representations and currents extending from the center of the liberal right and the Christian Democratic to The extreme left of the radical socialist, in dismantling the deep institutional structure of a totalitarian military regime that perched on the head of the state and society for seventeen years under the leadership of General Augusto Pinochet, and crossing the country safely into spaces of partisan pluralism and political competition by relying strictly exclusively on constitutional mechanisms and peaceful means, and without falling into the furnace of violence or sliding into the square of civil war.

The study then moves on to dissect the dimensions and genius of the innovative and intelligent propaganda management of the famous rejection campaign known as “No” (NO), which was able to ably break the barrier of deep-rooted psychological and political fear among Chilean voters and direct their voices towards change. The research also sheds intense light on the high negotiating ability demonstrated by the leaders of the coalition. In engineering the peaceful dialogue with the men of the military establishment, which ultimately resulted in the approval of a package of fundamental and consensual constitutional amendments in 1989, especially those that succeeded in reducing the broad powers of the National Security Council and curtailing the absolute power of the dictator. The study concludes its chapters with a careful analysis of all the decree and legal procedures regulating and complementing the process of authoritarian transition, which culminated on March 11, 1990, with the official and protocol handover of the reins of power from General Pinochet to the democratically elected civilian president, Patricio Aylwin, so that this unique Chilean experience became an inspiring academic model in engineering a political transition based on the philosophy of historical bargaining and conscious political pragmatism.