Salvador Allende by Victor Figueroa Clark

Author:Victor Figueroa Clark
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Pluto Press
Published: 2013-10-17T10:38:12+00:00

6

The Popular Unity

On 4 September 1970, Salvador Allende won the Chilean presidential elections. As was usual in Chilean elections nobody had won an overall majority (1964 had been an exception) and Congress was called to ratify the election result. Allende had polled 36.6 per cent, Jorge Alessandri, the right-wing candidate 34.9 per cent, and the Christian Democrats under Radimiro Tomic, 27.8 per cent. The results hid clear support for a socialist programme, with the PDC espousing what it called ‘communitarian socialism’, and showed how the left had gained from disillusion with the PDC, whose popularity had suffered after six years of government, a sorry economic record and a catalogue of massacres. The PDC had also been abandoned by its foreign backers, who had observed how the left had come to dominate the Party. In June 1969 some in the PDC had even sought to make an alliance with the UP official policy. The debate was fierce, and the motion was narrowly lost, leading to a split in the Party.1 The grassroots of the Christian Democrats chose to put forward Radimiro Tomic, a left-leaning candidate who led the wing of the party opposed to Frei. The right-wing leadership of the PDC had lost control. With the failure of the CIA’s programmes to develop a non-Marxist popular base and to divide the union movement, the CIA decided not to support a particular candidate and to concentrate on attacking the Popular Unity, the tactic from the 1960s that it judged to have been most successful.2 In all, the CIA spent between US$800,000 and US$1,000,000 on the ‘spoiling campaign’ in 1970, with US transnational corporations also contributing funds.3 The campaign evoked fears of a red terror, with images of blindfolded prisoners before a firing squad and Soviet tanks in central Santiago, radio programmes, and other stories planted in the media. Although the campaign failed to prevent Allende’s victory, it contributed to further polarisation and to a financial panic. Despite this the results showed that nearly 65 per cent of the electorate had backed programmes that espoused some form of socialism.

On the day of the election Allende went to the Socialist Party HQ and then accompanied Tencha to vote. On arrival at the polling station they were met with applause mixed with whistles and jeers. The couple then returned to their home on Guardia Vieja street where they waited with friends and comrades.4 As usual each party prepared its victory celebrations just in case but had to get final permission from the army, which provided security during the elections. Allende called the officer in charge to get permission for a UP celebration. The officer informed him that it had been approved. Allende put down the phone and said, ‘We’ve won!’ If not, permission would have been denied. The people assembled in his dining room erupted into cheers and hugs of joy. At 1 a.m. Allende walked to the nearby FECH building. The people of Santiago had begun gathering on Alameda Avenue, bouncing up and down

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