Chilean presidential election of 1958

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Presidential Election of Chile of 1958 Chairman for the period 1958-1964
Date						Thursday, 4 September 1958
Type						Presidential, national level
Period						3 November 1958 to 3 November 1964
Electoral demography
Population					7 326 000 (est.)
Registered						1 497 902
Voters						1 250 350
Participation
							83.47 %3.1 %
Valid votes						1 235 552
Results
			Jorge Alessandri- Ind.
			Coalition United Conservative Party Liberal Party Popular Commands Alliance of Popular Parties and Forces
			Votes			389.909
			Votes in Plenary Congress						147
									31.56 %
			Salvador Allende- PS
			Popular Action Front Communist Party of Chile Socialist Party of Chile Radical Doctrinary Party Democratic Party National People’s Vanguard
			Votes			356,493585.9 %
			Votes in Plenary Congress						26
									28.85 %
			Eduardo Frei Montalva- PDC
			Coalition Christian Democratic Party Agrarian Labour Party National Party
			Votes			255,769
									20.70 per cent
			Luis Bossay- PR
			Votes			192,0770.9 %
									15.55 %
			Antonio Zamorano- Ind.
			National Labour Union
			Votes			41,304
									3.34 %
Map of results by provinces
President of Chile
Owner Carlos Ibáñez del Campo Independent						Elect Jorge Alessandri Independent

The Chilean presidential election of 1958 was held on September 4, 1958, and Jorge Alessandri Rodríguez won by relative majority, with 31.56% of the votes.

Candidacies

Luis Bossay Leiva

On June 30, 1957, the first candidate of the electoral contest was appointed, the senator for Valparaíso Luis Bossay, for the Radical Party (PR), who hoped to recover the Presidency of the Republic that had been three times followed by his party until the arrival of Carlos Ibáñez del Campo. He counted in his favor on the electoral rebound of the PR in last year's parliamentary elections and the possibility that a sector of the left, the more moderate socialists, would end up supporting him.

Eduardo Frei Montalva

The appointment of Bossay made the Falange Nacional abandon its expectations of appointing a single candidate for the center and the moderate left, so they decided to raise their own candidate. The leader and founder of the party, Eduardo Frei Montalva, who had recently been elected senator for Santiago with the first majority, took the initiative and began touring the country in order to obtain support for his candidacy. On July 18, 1957 it was officially proclaimed by means of a public manifesto, in which it was stated that Frei was the man "capable of giving the country unity, confidence and responsible direction". Ten days later, the union of the parties of Christian social inspiration and the Christian Democratic Party was formed.

On August 11, 1957, the Agrarian Labor Party gave its support to Frei, and three days later the National Party would do the same.

Salvador Allende Gossens

The left, unified in the Popular Action Front (FRAP), chose the socialist Salvador Allende as its candidate, after winning the People's Presidential Convention, held between September 13 and 17, 1957, before the other pre-candidates: Mamerto Figueroa (ANT), Rudecindo Ortega (PRD), Humberto Mewes (PT), Guillermo del Pedregal (independent) and Francisco Cuevas Mackenna (independent). In a first round of voting, Allende obtained 508 votes, followed by Alejandro Serani with 350, Humberto Mewes with 331, Francisco Cuevas Mackenna with 323, Rudecindo Ortega with 318 and Guillermo del Pedregal with 212; after said round it would be agreed to nominate Allende by acclamation.

Senator for Magallanes, Allende had already presented himself as a presidential candidate in 1952, obtaining only 5.4% of the votes, but his speech and political activity had made him the natural candidate of the left, overwhelming the support of his party to other sectors of the population.

Jorge Alessandri Rodríguez

Since mid-1957 the name of Jorge Alessandri began to be heard as the ideal candidate for the right. The son of President Arturo Alessandri Palma, he had early become involved in politics as a parliamentarian and Minister of State, albeit with a much lower profile than his father, known for his political ardor. Despite his image of a frugal, arrogant man and a crafty bachelor, Alessandri was a leader with a strong popular following, reluctant to meddle in the struggle of political parties.

Jorge Alessandri was elected president with 31.2 % of the votes, being subsequently ratified by the National Congress.

The great difficulty of Alessandri's candidacy is that the candidate himself refused to accept it. On the other hand, some members of the Liberal Party, displeased with Alessandri's non-partisan position, were in favor of supporting Eduardo Frei, who, in need of strength, was working openly to get the votes of at least one sector of the right. Frei formally requested support in a letter sent to the leadership of the Liberal Party, in which he stated that he was the best alternative for the future and that his support did not mean renouncing their doctrinal differences.

The conservatives, divided between those who supported Alessandri and those who supported Frei, made efforts in favor of their respective candidates. Frei's conservatives asked Frei to present a formal petition to obtain the support of the party, but he refused, probably because of the old animosity between conservatives and Falangists. Faced with the rejection, and to find time for Alessandri to make up his mind, the conservative youth raised the name of Juan Antonio Coloma Mellado as a candidate.

When the right-wing parties were about to designate their candidate, Alessandri gave in to being a candidate. The change occurred after a discussion with Senator Francisco Bulnes Sanfuentes, who confronted him with his alleged refusal to accept the presidential candidacy, Alessandri responding that no one had offered it to him, and before a stunned Bulnes, who reminded him that Hugo Zepeda had offered him the candidacy, I clarify: "He never offered me the candidacy... He called me on the phone and said: Don Jorge, do you want to be a candidate for the presidency of the republic?... I asked him I answered I don't want... I don't want to be a candidate for the presidency of the republic (but) a very different thing is... that some friends of mine have convinced me that my obligation was to accept the candidacy, if they asked me;... but that I want her... I don't want her!"

A fortuitous event came to bury Frei's hopes of being supported by the Liberal Party. When Raúl Marín Balmaceda was delivering a fiery speech during a Liberal Party assembly in support of Alessandri, he suffered a heart attack, and suddenly fell to the ground, dying shortly after. In addition to the emotional blow, when the liberal assembly was suspended, the conservatives were able to proclaim Alessandri as their formal candidate on August 25 —having received 472 votes in favor and 17 against—, before the liberals met again; the United Conservative Party formally requested the support of the Liberal Party. With Alessandri as candidate and the memory of Marín Balmaceda fresh in memory, Frei's moment had passed, so on September 12, 1957 the Liberal Directorate proclaimed Jorge Alessandri candidate by 327 votes against Frei's 147.

Antonio Zamorano Herrera

Antonio Zamorano Herrera, popularly known as the Cura de Catapilco, was a peculiar character from the province of Valparaíso who ran as a candidate without the support of any party; He formally announced his candidacy on August 27, 1957. He was former parish priest of the town of Catapilco and representative for the FRAP in 1957, representing Talca. With a folkloric and incisive language, he managed to capture some adherents in popular sectors of Valparaíso, Aconcagua, Talca, Linares and other rural areas of Chile, emerging in his speech as a figure close to the left.

Despite his closeness to the FRAP, he did not withdraw his candidacy, which directly affected Allende's, for which some analysts have stated (without any reliable evidence), that he was probably financed by supporters of Alessandri, as a way to contain Allende.

Campaign

On July 21, 1958 at 11:59 p.m., the deadline for declaring the candidacies to the Electoral Registry Office expired and on the 23rd of the same month the draw was held to determine the order of the candidacies on the ballot paper.

This was the first election in which bribery completely disappeared, as the single identity card was created. The participation of the Communist Party had also been normalized after the repeal of the Law for the Defense of Democracy. This gave Allende a certain opportunity to win, but warned of the dangers of a possible socialist government.

Alessandri was also one of the favourites, since the support he had transcended the sphere of the right and he managed to capture many more votes than those that this sector commonly had.

Luis Bossay based his campaign showing himself as a continuator of the radical governments that governed between 1938 and 1952, with a capitalist regime with strong state intervention, promising to reverse the economic measures implemented by Ibáñez, particularly the Klein-Sacks Mission plan.

Salvador Allende's program was the most radical, not only compared to his rivals but also to the old left-wing candidacies. He advocated for a strong statism that would help to reconfigure the Chilean society and economy, which meant initiating the agrarian reform process, the nationalization of raw materials, the creation of a social area in the economy, redistribution of wealth, control of the system banking and an independent international policy.

Allende's speech had particular force among the peasantry, a situation that the candidate baptized as the political awakening of the peasantry, which had generally been a stronghold of the right, but with the end of bribery they began to lean towards the left and the agrarian reform.

All the candidates made national tours, including Jorge Alessandri who disliked them, but it was Allende who best capitalized on these trips with the "Victory Train", a steam locomotive, with which he toured downtown and the south of the country, frequently insisting that whoever won a simple majority should become president, without the need for ratification in Congress.

The founder and leader of the Christian Democratic Party, Eduardo Frei Montalva, postulated a third-way program between capitalism and socialism.

Eduardo Frei wanted a profound renewal of Chilean society, based on the Christian spirit, as a third way between capitalism and communism. His program proposed, economically, restriction of consumption, support for public and private investment, reduction of public spending, increase in loans and investments from abroad and a reform of the provisional system. On the agricultural issue, it was necessary to increase productivity, for which he proposed the colonization of public land, the assurance of fair prices, stable markets, medium and long-term credits, the creation of public works and the application of new techniques.

But Frei did not base his campaign so much on a political program as on the affective contact of the candidate with the voters. To do this, Frei appeared in numerous rallies, in which he harangued the masses showing off his stage and oratory ability. This reached its peak on July 10, 1958 in a rally in Plaza Bulnes, which, according to the press, "exceeds all events of this nature that our capital has known". In his speech, he recalled the serious state of the country "stagnant in poverty, social inequality, unemployment and paralysis in companies", to finally direct his hopes to the present electorate: " What does the cry of a single man matter when you hear the hoarse clamor that arises from thousands of voices and throats? What does a single voice matter before the people that is like the voice of God?”

At the end of his campaign, Frei addressed the country through a chain of radio stations, where he insisted on the danger of the victory of either of the two extremes, showing himself confident in his victory.

The central point of Jorge Alessandri's programmatic proposal was to achieve economic rectification, which would allow an increase in production, which was for Alessandri the only real way to improve the standard of living of the poorest. He proposed changing state intervention in the economy, the state should withdraw its participation in industrial companies and concentrate on making infrastructure investments. The spending would be financed with external loans and foreign investment. He supported free competition, so he wanted an opening to foreign trade and reduced protectionism only while Chilean companies renewed their teams to be more competitive. On the agricultural issue, he proposed the colonization of public lands and the need for the state to invest in public works necessary for agricultural development.

This speech was not very ideological, unlike its competitors, so its electoral hook was rather in the exaltation of its personal characteristics: incorruptible, without ambitions, austere, honest, efficient and well-known leadership skills.

His campaign command popularized him with the nickname “el paleta” and papering the cities with a poster designed by Jorge Délano, Coke, in which he appeared Alessandri with his right hand raised and the index finger pointing at the voter, with the slogan "I need you", referring to the fact that he placed his trust more in the voter than in the political parties.

The electoral contest was marred at times by personal attacks between political groups, especially through the press. The radicals resorted to lies and personal insults in their posters, as well as an obscene abuse of radio programs. In the press, Frei's prominent nose was ridiculed, Alessandri's egomania and bachelorhood, which sometimes gave way to being ridiculed as a homosexual, and Allende's onerous lifestyle, caricaturing him as a vain "pije" and incompetent as a doctor.

Surveys

Election Day

On September 4, two earthquakes occurred in Chile: one at 10:45 a.m. (local time) that was felt in Arica, and another at 5:55 p.m. —with an aftershock five minutes later— that was felt in Santiago, which did not alter the normal development of the elections.

The first results of the vote were delivered by a women's table in the town of Algarrobito, in the province of Coquimbo. In said table Alessandri obtained 7 votes, Bossay 5, Frei 2 and Allende one.

Results

People's Choice

Facsimile of the vote used in the election, employed by the Frei campaign.

National

The results of September 4 gave Jorge Alessandri the winner, with 31.5% of the votes, followed closely by Allende, with a difference of less than 30,000 votes. Frei got 20.7%, which put him and his party in a relatively solid position. Radicalism was the biggest loser; its voting dropped considerably, never in its history would it recover.

Candidate			Party		Coalition Political support	Votes	%
		Jorge Alessandri Rodríguez		Ind	PCU- PLA-COP Alliance of Popular Parties and Forces	389 909	31.56 %
		Salvador Allende Gossens		PS	Popular Action Front	356 493	28.85 %
		Eduardo Frei Montalva		PDC	PDC-PAL-PN	255 769	20.7 %
		Luis Bossay Leiva		PR	Radical Party	192 077	15.55 %
		Antonio Zamorano Herrera		Ind	National Labour Union	41 304	3.34 %
Total valid votes						1 235 552	98.82 %
White and null votes						14 798	1.18 %
Total votes cast						1 250 350	100%
Total registered						1 497 902	Abstaining: 16.53 %

By province

For tables of men and women

In the results by gender, it can be seen that Allende won in the men's tables, but was third in the women's tables, being surpassed by Frei and Alessandri. The latter achieved a wide victory in the women's tables, beating Eduardo Frei by 10 points.

Zamorano's candidacy

Since Antonio Zamorano obtained 3.3% of the vote with a leftist discourse, and Allende lost by a difference of 2.7%, for decades it has been speculated that if Zamorano had not run, Allende would have won, to the point that his candidacy has entered Chilean political jargon as a synonym for preventing "the second majority from being able to overcome the first". However, a study published in 2017 maintains that there is no statistical evidence to conclude that Zamorano was the responsible for the defeat of the socialist standard-bearer, since he obtained his best votes in communes where the right was strongest and his weakest where the left had better results, so if he had not presented himself, his votes would have gone to all the candidates presidential elections, and not only Allende.

Election in the Full Congress

Since Alessandri did not obtain an absolute majority, according to the 1925 Constitution, it was up to the Plenary Congress to choose between those two candidates who had obtained the highest relative majorities. On October 24, 1958, the Plenary Congress elected Alessandri, a process that was carried out easily, since the entire country had recognized his victory.

The vote of the Plenary Congress (deputies and senators) was as follows:

Candidate			Party		Coalition Political support	Votes	%
		Jorge Alessandri Rodríguez		Ind	PCU- PLA-COP Alliance of Popular Parties and Forces	147	84.97 %
		Salvador Allende Gossens		PS	Popular Action Front	26	15.03 %
Total valid votes						173	92.51 %
White votes						14	7.49 %
Total votes cast						187	100%
Congressmen who did not attend						5	Abstaining: 2.6%