Chilean political parties

The political parties of Chile, or the Chilean party system, clearly distinguishes three groups in Chile, which are the political left, the political center, and the political right, pluralistic and moderately fragmenting before the year 1973.

This distinction has existed since the end of the 19th century, but it has been occupied on each occasion by different parties that have participated in the management of the State or have been represented in the National Congress.

Political parties are legally and formally recognized in the Political Constitution of the Republic of Chile of 1980 and by the Constitutional Organic Law of Political Parties of 1987 as organizations that participate in the political system and contribute to channeling public opinion.

History of political parties in Chile

Chronogram of the main Chilean political parties from 1830 to 1970.

Origins and the first factions (1810-1860)

In Chile, the first political groupings took place during the Chilean Independence, between the royalists (supporters of the King) and the patriots (supporters of a more or less independent republic), which in turn were subdivided into moderates (supporters of a process of greater autonomy within the Spanish Empire) and the exalted.

Once independence was consummated, a huge number of political currents arose, often grouped not so much around common political ideals, but around various more or less popular leaders. The two strongest political groups were the pipiolos, of a liberal nature, and the pelucones of a conservative nature, although next to them it is possible to also find the o'higginistas and tobacconists. Finally, after Diego Portales Palazuelos became the architect of the new institutionality, through the Constitution of 1833, the pelucones group prevailed for thirty years (1831-1861).

The prevailing political system, in which the President co-opted a successor, significantly influenced the transfer of power simply between members of the ruling political sector, throughout the period between 1831 and 1861. Only the question of the sacristan (1856), which divided the pelucones (now called conservatives), allowed the liberals to rise to power in 1861.

Dominance of traditional parties (1860-1920)

The formal irruption of political parties in the Chilean institutionality occurred around the 1850s, beginning to dispute the role of the president in national political life, through the National Congress, which would finally be resolved in 1891 in favor of the latter.

Around that time, the rise of the middle class would lead to the creation of the Radical Party. It began its career in the 1850s, as a group defending the interests of the mining bourgeoisie related to the extraction of silver, but it would progressively focus on employees of the growing state bureaucracy. Some time later, and from the same root of radicalism, the Democratic Party appeared, a group that was born being closer to the proletarian sectors, but that over time would join the game of alliances with the rest of the system.

After the Chilean civil war of 1891, the political system took on parliamentary forms. Thus, political coalitions gained a lot of strength. Although there were about twenty different political parties and movements, politics was structured around two large conglomerates: the Liberal Alliance (with a liberal and progressive tendency) and the Coalition (with a conservative Catholic tendency). At the same time, the political parties, until then a kind of political clubs of the oligarchic bourgeoisie, would expand to integrate the thriving middle class, and also the workers.

Massification of political parties (1920-1973)

With immigration from Europe, workers with anarchist and socialist ideas arrived in Chile. Likewise, since the mid-nineteenth century, the union movement in the nitrate mines of the Norte Grande of Chile emerged through the associations and cooperatives of resistance. It is from these processes that in 1912, the printer worker Luis Emilio Recabarren, along with some 30 nitrate workers and employees, founded the Socialist Workers Party (POS) in Iquique, which defines itself as the political party of the working class. Chilean. In 1922 the POS decided to adhere to the Third Communist International, with what became known as the Communist Party of Chile.

In the period between 1920 and 1938 (that is, between the beginning of the first presidential term of Arturo Alessandri Palma, and the end of his second term), a series of political incidents led to the loss of importance of the parties traditional nineteenth-century, to the benefit of the mass parties.

The splendor of this new type of political party would come with the three presidential terms obtained by the Radical Party between 1938 and 1952. At this time the Radical Party (the group of the middle class, par excellence) would become a huge dispenser of positions and political favors, which in the long run would bring him discredit. Its place as an intermediate political group between the right and the left would be taken by the Christian Democratic Party (a successor political group to the National Falange, which in turn had split from the increasingly decadent Conservative Party), after the triumph of Eduardo Frei. Montalva (1964-1970). Regarding political parties, their main characteristic between 1938 and 1973 was their structure in the classic "three thirds" (right, center and left).

Unidad Popular came to power with Salvador Allende, a vast political coalition made up of elements from the center and left. However, the 1973 military coup meant not only the disappearance of the Popular Unity, but also the breakdown of the party system, and its end for most of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship. Only in the last years of the military dictatorship was the Constitutional Organic Law of Political Parties promulgated, which regulated their formation and operation.

Proscription of parties and reorganization (1973-1990)

Between 1973 and 1987 Chilean political parties were banned. On October 8, 1973, those belonging to the Popular Unity (UP) were outlawed and three days later the rest of the political parties and movements were declared in recess, being dissolved definitively on March 12, 1977.

On October 1, 1986, the Constitutional Organic Law was published in the Official Gazette, which reestablished the electoral registration system and created the Electoral Service of Chile (Servel) as a replacement for the old Electoral Registry Office. In March 1987, the Constitutional Organic Law of Political Parties was published —which set its objectives, requirements for legalization and internal organization, among others— with which the groups began to initiate the procedures for their legal recognition.

The National Party (PN) was the first political organization to be legally recognized by the Servel on December 23, 1987, officially registered in the corresponding registry on January 4, 1988. In the following months —before the plebiscite of October 5, 1988—the National Advanced, Humanist, National Renewal, Radical Democracy, Chilean Socialist, Christian Democrat, For Democracy, Del Sur, Radical and Los Verdes parties were legalized.

Return to democracy (1990-2022)

After democracy was restored in 1990, the main political referent in Chile was the Coalition of Parties for Democracy, a center-left group founded by 17 political parties, of which the Christian Democratic Party, the Radical Social Democratic Party, the Party for Democracy, and the Socialist Party of Chile. The Concertación governed Chile through presidents Patricio Aylwin, Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, Ricardo Lagos and Michelle Bachelet. The most staunch opponent of the ruling party both as a supervisory body and as a parliamentary and popular opposition was the center-right Alliance for Chile, and which brought together the Independent Democratic Union, and National Renewal, and to a lesser extent, the leftist political pact Juntos Podemos Más.

The Alliance came to the government when Sebastián Piñera took office (2010-2014). In 2013, the parties that made up the then-opposition Concertación decided to reach an agreement with the Communist (PCCh), Izquierda Ciudadana (IC) and Broad Social Movement (MAS) parties, constituting the New Majority pact. This coalition obtained comfortable victories in the 2013 elections and achieved the re-election of Michelle Bachelet for the period 2014-2018. For their part, the parties that made up the Alliance regrouped in 2015 into a new coalition called Chile Vamos.

In 2016 the number of legalized political parties in Chile doubled, from 14 to 32, as a prelude to the municipal elections of that year and the parliamentary elections of 2017, given that these will be the first to be held under the new electoral system (proportional) that replaced the binomial one, which favored the existence of two blocks to the detriment of isolated parties and independent candidates. In that election, the Broad Front appeared, a coalition that brought together sectors of the left and liberals, which surprised by obtaining the election of 20 deputies. In the presidential election, Sebastián Piñera managed to return to government and established Chile Vamos as the official coalition.

Constitutional Convention and reconfiguration of pacts (2022-present)

After the social outbreak of 2019, a plebiscite was held that defined the drafting of a new Constitution through a Constitutional Convention. The members of said body were elected in May 2021, in a process that benefited to the independents over the militants of political parties. The proposal of that convention ended up being rejected in the plebiscite of September 2022.

From the election of conventional constituents, the Approve Dignity pact emerged, which brought together the Frente Amplio and Chile Digno coalitions. This group raised the presidential candidacy of Gabriel Boric Font, who after winning the ballot, decided to convene the government to the Socialist (PS), For Democracy (PPD), Radical (PR) and Liberal (PL) parties, which were grouped in a space called Democratic Socialism. This implied the definitive break of the old Concertación with the Christian Democratic Party, who was not invited into the new administration.

The Republican Party emerged from the extreme right, which in the parliamentary elections won the election of 14 deputies and one senator, facing the traditional center-right grouped in Chile Vamos, which from 2022 went into opposition after the end of the Piñera government. Other populist blocs also emerged in those elections, such as the People's Party (PDG), which won six seats.

Current political parties in Chile

As of February 2023, there are 18 legally constituted political parties in Chile before the Electoral Service. The following table shows the constituted parties, in formation and in process ordered according to their number of senators, deputies, governors, regional councilors, mayors and councilors in descending order:

Parties constituted by region

Name	Arica and Parinacota	Tarapacá	Antofagasta	Attack	Coquimbo	Valparaiso	Metropolitan	O'Higgins	Maule	Ñuble	Biobío	Araucanía	Los Ríos	The Lakes	Aysen	Magellan
Humanist Action
Commons
Social convergence
Political developments
Regionalist Federation Green Social
Communist Party of Chile
People's Party
Christian Democratic Party
Humanist Party of Chile
Liberal Party of Chile
Party for Democracy
Radical Party of Chile
Republican Party of Chile
Christian Social Party
Socialist Party of Chile
National renewal
Democratic Revolution
Independent Democratic Union
Source: Chilean Electoral Service.