Chile: the balanced view : a recopilation of articles about the Allende years and after

the Interior to the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, General Carlos Prats, sO as to assure that the congressional elections scheduled for March 1973 would be carried on freely and impartially. The involvement of the military and the preparations for the March elections brought about a lull in the escalation of political conflict in Chile. Inevitably, however, it also produced political division within the mil itary itself, which had hitherto been relatively aloof from the process of polarization. It was soon apparent, for instance, that General Prats was willing to give the government the benefit of the doubt in nearly every instance that its decisions or actions were challanged. Conversely, the Navy was noticeably less enthusias– tic, and in JaniJary Admiral Ismael Huerta resigned from the cabinet over plans for the initiation of what he took to be a food-rationing systeAl. Itis now also known that the first plans for a possible coup were made by intermed iate-Ievel officers at the end of 1972.(16) Food distribution became a critical issue as the black-market continued to expand, with much of Chile's agricultural production going into illegal channels because of the government's refusal to increase the official prices paid for agricultural produce. The result was, in effect, two separate price systems-a subsidized, state-owned distribution system oriented primarily toward the low-income groups and a flourishing black market aimed at middle-and upper-income groups. The expansion of the powers of government-appointed Supply and Distribution Committees (JAP) to deal with the black-market problem led the opposition to charge political manipulation of food distribution; nonetheless, the govern– ment seemed powerless to combat black-market operations. THE MARCH 1973 ELECTIONS The congressional elections in March did not resolve anything: Chile's right-wing parties had hoped that food shortages and economic difficulties would produce a two– thirds majority against the government, which might in turn permit the impeachment of the President, but the results, while showing an anti-government majority of 56 percent, gave the Allende regime 44 percent-a larger vote than most observers had predicted. The opposition pointed out that the vote of the pro-government forces had declined fromthe 50 percent they had registered in the 1971 municipal elections, while the government compa– red its 44 percent with the 36 percent that Allende hadreceived in 1970. In fact, the only proper basis for cornparison was the 1968 congressional elections. On th¡¡.t basis, the leftist parties had suffered a slight loss in votes but had achieved a slight gain in seats. Certain oppositionists later argued that the Left would have suffered much greater losses had it not been for a government-assisted electoral fraud involving some 200,000-300,000 votes, but the statistics presented in support of the argument are unconvincing.(17) While the government's interpretation of the elections as proof that it was expanding its popular support was not accurate, the election results indicated that at least it had not lost popularity as rapidly as previous governments faced with similar economic reverses. Despite a wage readjustment in October, real wages had declined 7 percent in 1972, and raging inflation continued to consume the wage increase in early 1973. However, the combination of discriminatory distribution of government-produced goods and appeals to class consciousness seemed to have stemmed the erosion of support, at least among the masses of the poor. Unfortunately for the government's longer-range'interests, the deliberate accentuation of class consciousness had an opposite effect on the middle class, driving middle-class areas to organize themselves 'into "Neighborhood Committees" to defend themselves. It (16)The New York Times (New York), Sept. 27, 1973. (17)See report 01 Ihe Investigating Committee 01 the Catholic University Law School, reproduced in the Libro Blanco, pp. 220-30. The statistics on new voters in 1973 omit the 2Ho-24-year-old group who wOuld have been too young to vote in 1970. They comprised almost exactly the number 01 "Iraudulent" voters estimated in the report. 31