Transition in Chile

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The Chilean transition to democracy ( Transition , Spanish: transición means "transition") refers to the transformation of the political system in Chile from 1988, of the return of the since 1973 Chilean coup d'état existing military dictatorship under General Augusto Pinochet led junta back to Includes democracy .

Important steps were the referendum of October 5, 1988, which limited Pinochet's term of office as head of state, then the congressional and presidential elections held on December 14, 1989 , which brought the Christian Democrat Patricio Aylwin into office as a democratically legitimized president and the return to parliamentary Legislation made it possible to set up truth commissions in 1990 and 2001 to investigate the human rights violations committed by the military regime between 1973 and 1990 , as well as the reform of the constitution of Chile passed on August 26, 2005, which largely abolished the constitutional special rights of the military, which had previously existed . Another important turning point was the arrest of Pinochet in Great Britain in 1998 , which gave Chilean politicians and civil society a freer hand for the further democratic restructuring of the political system.

Whether the transition in Chile was completed with the constitutional reform in 2005 or whether it will take longer and how profound the political and social change actually is is experienced and judged differently by contemporary historians and citizens of Chile. During the protests that broke out across Chile from October 2019 , the focus was on the demand for a new constitution that should finally replace the constitution of 1980 that came into force during the military dictatorship.

Referendum and election

referendum

At the height of his power, the dictator Augusto Pinochet enacted a constitution in 1980 that eight years later provided for a referendum on a further term in office. On October 5, 1988, a majority of 55.99 percent voted against Pinochet's further term in office.

Presidential election

Pinochet bowed to the vote: On December 14, 1989, a free presidential election took place. With a turnout of 90%, the Christian Democrat Patricio Aylwin from the Concertación party alliance , a broad center-left alliance of Christian Democrats, Liberals, Social Democrats and Socialists, received 55.2% of the vote. Right-wing candidates, Finance Minister Hernán Büchi and Francisco Javier Errázuriz , received 29.4% and 15.4% of the vote, respectively.

Handover

Aylwin took office on March 11, 1990. Pinochet used the meantime to secure the capitalist economic model, to heave friends and supporters into influential positions, and last but not least to ensure his power and personal well-being in a democracy.

Authoritarian enclaves

At the time of the change of government, the constitution secured the influence of the old regime through numerous regulations, even during democracy. Political scientists and the former President Ricardo Lagos (2000-2006) refer to these undemocratic clauses as authoritarian enclaves .

military

The military was the most important instrument to prevent deep reforms.

Financial autonomy

Since the "Copper Act" (ley 13.196) of 1958, the Chilean armed forces have received direct income from copper mining. Pinochet stipulated that 10% of the export earnings of the state-owned copper company CODELCO (in US dollars) go to investments by the military. In addition, a minimum level was set for the defense budget based on the (inflation-adjusted) budget from 1989. In a (feared) economic decline, the military would have become relatively more powerful.

Autonomy over staff and doctrine

The term of office of the commander-in-chief of the four armed forces Army ( Ejército de Chile ), Navy ( Armada de Chile ), Air Force ( Fuerza Aérea de Chile ) and National Police ( Carabineros de Chile ) was doubled to eight years as an interim solution. During this time, the president could only remove the generals with the consent of the "National Security Council" (COSENA), half of which consisted of generals.

Just twelve days before the handover to his successor Patricio Aylwin , Pinochet gave the commanders-in-chief by a military law ( Ley Orgánica Constitucional de las Fuerzas Armadas number 18.948) the power to decide largely autonomously on promotions, albeit with a kind of veto right of the president.

National Security Council

The National Security Council of Chile ( Consejo de Seguridad Nacional de Chile , COSENA) decided on important issues, such as the dismissal of generals or the declaration of a state of emergency, and was a central body of Chile.

He sat down together

  • the four commanders-in-chief of the armed forces
  • the president
  • the President of the Senate
  • the President of the Supreme Court
  • the "supreme controller" (since the constitutional reform of 1989)

It could be convened by two members and decided with an absolute majority. Since 1989, the military have not been able to make a decision against the rest of the members, but have blocked every decision (such as their own dismissal).

amnesty

The 1978 Amnesty Act (which is in force to this day) made human rights violations no longer traceable to the judiciary between 1973 and 1978. Under pressure from the USA , only the murder of the former Chilean ambassador to the USA, Orlando Letelier , committed in Washington, DC in 1976 , was excluded.

The Senate

Members

Article 45 of the constitution stipulates that in addition to the elected senators, nine senators are appointed (senadores designados). these are

  • four former commanders in chief, appointed by their respective branches of the armed forces
  • two members appointed by the President
    • a former minister
    • a former university rector
  • three members appointed by the Supreme Court
    • two former chief judges
    • a former chief inspector
  • "All presidents with a term of office of more than six years" - that is, Pinochet himself.

The number of elected senators was increased to 38 by the constitutional reform of 1989 in order to reduce the weight of the appointed senators.

function

The Senate must approve all constitutional amendments with a two-thirds majority and all amendments by “Leyes Orgánicas” with a 60% majority. Because of the appointed senators and the binomial electoral system, forces close to Pinochet always had a blocking majority. Comprehensive constitutional reform only succeeded in 2005.

The binomial voting system

With a few exceptions, Chile is the only country in which a binomial electoral system is used. The two largest parties each get a seat from the two MPs in each Chilean constituency - unless the leading party manages to get more than twice as many votes as the second-placed party. In this case, she gets both seats. De facto, this means an (almost) safe half in parliament for the right-wing parties, who can usually also rely on the appointed senators.

Hectic appointments

In the year between the plebiscite and the handover, Pinochet reappointed almost all mayors (who were not elected, but appointed in Chile), so that they too had the town halls safe for four years.

The judges of the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court were enticed with offers to take early retirement so that their successors could stay in office for a full eight years.

Central bank

The central bank was given independence in 1989. The president of the central bank should henceforth be determined by the military. The aim was to fix the stability-oriented, monetarist economic policy in an unalterable manner.

Personal securities

Numerous constitutional articles, laws and transitional regulations serve solely to keep Pinochet in power. Through the amnesty law, his Senate seat for life and his eight-year term as commander-in-chief of the Chilean armed forces, Pinochet tried to make himself legally and politically unassailable, which he largely succeeded in doing. As it came out only after 2000, the dictator also had several false foreign passports and accounts in Switzerland and with the Riggs Bank in Washington, DC In the United States alone , he or his family had 128 accounts with a total of at least 19 million US dollars. Dollar balance.

Saber rattles

Verbal show of force

Already on October 14, 1988 - days after the lost referendum - Pinochet made his claim to power clear: " si tocan a uno solo de mis hombres, se acaba el estado de derecho " ("If you touch even one of my men, he is Rule of law ended. ”) He later described the German Armed Forces as a force of“ marijuana smokers, drug addicts, bums, homosexuals and trade unionists ”and accused the government of wanting to develop the Chilean armed forces in this direction.

Troop movements

At the Ejercicio de Enlace (translator: "Test of operational readiness") on December 19, 1990, the highest level of alert was suddenly called and the army was ordered into the barracks without consulting the government . This was explained the next day with a test of readiness for action. In fact, the ex-dictator (successfully) put pressure on the investigation into the so-called pinocheques , an affair about the enrichment of his son.

For the same reason, something similar happened on May 28, 1993 at the Boinazo . Aylwin was in Europe when a five-day maneuver was held while the commanders-in-chief in uniform met under the protection of elite units ( boinas negras ). The President then urged Parliament not to mention Pinochet in the final report of the investigation.

During the arrest of the former head of the secret service, General Manuel Contreras , on June 22, 1995, hundreds of officers (at least in civilian clothes) protested in front of the Punta Peuco prison . This action became known as peucazo . Again, government authorities had made progress in the preliminary investigation into the pinocheques case .

Aylwin's term of office

After taking office in March 1990, Patricio Aylwin immediately began attempts to curb the power of the military and to expose human rights violations. However, he had next to no success. The reason was, on the one hand, the great autonomy of the military, on the other hand, the courts occupied by Pinochet loyalists and, thirdly, the right-wing parties, which immediately blocked any constitutional reform.

A truth commission ( Comisión de Verdad y Reconciliación nacional or Rettig Commission ) was set up in the spring of 1990 to come to terms with human rights violations . She was heavily criticized by the military and was not allowed to investigate and was not allowed to publish the names of perpetrators. As a result, there were no charges based on the work results.

Aylwin could not change the financial autonomy of the military, but he only approved the defense budget as much as was legally prescribed as a minimum. During his tenure , the military budget, as a share of the gross domestic product, fell to around half of its 1988 value.

The president was also able to undermine the military's personal autonomy in a tricky manner: although he could not make a choice in terms of promotions, he was able to use his veto and thus prevent the promotion of officers who were involved in crimes.

Term of office free

Eduardo Frei , like his predecessor Christian Democrat , developed a different strategy. Probably because he saw his powerlessness, he tried to cooperate with the military and even suppressed attempts from his own camp for reforms or indictments.

Tenure of Lagos

In 2001 the Comisión Nacional de Prisión Política y Tortura was convened to investigate the torture committed by Pinochet.

The 2005 constitutional reform

After the successful constitutional reform in 2005, President Ricardo Lagos ( PPD ) saw the transition to democracy as complete.

See also

literature

Scientific literature

  • Chile today. Politics, economy, culture . In: Peter Imbusch , Dirk Messner, Detlef Nolde (eds.): Bibliotheca ibero-americana . tape 90 . Vervuert, Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-89354-590-5 .
    • Heinrich Krumwiede: The Chilean regime transformation in retrospect . S. 253-274 .
    • Michael Radseck: Military and Politics in Chile . S. 309-333 .
  • Claudio Fuentes: After Pinochet. Civilian policies toward the military in the 1990s Chilean democracy . In: Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs . 2000 (English, findarticles.com ).
  • Wendy Hunter: Civil-Military Relations in Argentina, Brazil, and Chile . Present trends, future prospects. In: Felipve Agüera, Jeffrey Slash (Eds.): Fault Lines of Democracy in Post-Transition Latin America . North-South Center Press, University of Miami, Coral Gables FL 1999, ISBN 1-57454-046-7 (English).
  • Rafael Otano: Crónica de la transición . Planeta, Santiago de Chile 1995, ISBN 956-247-144-6 (Spanish).
  • Stefan Rinke: A Little History of Chile . In: Beck's series . 1st edition. tape 1776 . Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-54804-8 .
  • Patricio Silva: Searching for Civilian Supremacy. The Concertación Governments and the Military in Chile . In: Bulletin of Latin American Research . tape 21 , no. 3 , 2002, p. 375-395 (English).
  • Fernando Codoceo: Democratic Transition in Chile. Continuity or a new beginning? wvb Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Berlin, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-86573-259-0 .

Newspaper articles

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Economist: Chile after Ricardo Lagos March 31, 2005.
  2. ↑ Rafael Otano: Crónica de la transición. Santiago de Chile, 1995, p. 151.