General elections were held in Chile on 14 December 1989, bringing an end to the military regime that had been in place since 1973. Patricio Aylwin of Concertación alliance was elected President, whilst the alliance also won a majority of seats in the Chamber of Deputies and in the elected Senate seats.
From the 1989 elections onwards the military had officially left the political future of the country to civilians to be elected. Pinochet did not endorse any candidate publicly. Former dictatorship minister Hernán Büchi ran for president as candidate of the two right-wing parties, RN and UDI. He had little political experience and was a relatively young (40 years) technocrat credited for Chile's good economic performance in the later half of the 1980s. The right parties faced several problems in the elections: there was considerable infighting between RN and UDI, Büchi had only very reluctantly accepted to run for president and right-wing politicians struggled to define their position towards the Pinochet regime. In addition to this right-wing populist Francisco Javier Errázuriz Talavera ran independently for president and made several election promises Büchi could not match.
Candidate Aylwin prevailed in a political negotiation within the so-called Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia, which at that time was made up of 17 political movements opposed to the military dictatorship. However, the process was not simple. The situation of each party was as follows:
The national organization, ideological moderation, and relative weight within the coalition ultimately led the Christian Democratic Party to determine the presidential candidacy. In this decision, the media prominence of Patricio AylwinâÂÂwhen he previously obtained the nomination as spokesperson or âÂÂprimus inter paresâ among the leaders of the Concertación for the 1988 plebisciteâÂÂwas influential, allowing him to secure the coalitionâÂÂs backing over alternatives from the moderate left such as Ricardo Lagos, Alejandro Hales, and Enrique Silva Cimma, which were reconsidered toward the end of the process.
AylwinâÂÂs nomination as the ConcertaciónâÂÂs candidate took place on July 6âÂÂhaving already been proclaimed as their candidate by the Party of the Center Alliance on June 28 and by the Democratic Socialist Radical Party on July 2, as well as by the Christian Left on July 4âÂÂ,while his formal proclamation was held on July 16, 1989, at the Teatro Caupolicán, a symbol of democratic resistance during the military dictatorship, under the slogan âÂÂThe people win.âÂÂOn August 2, the Broad Party of Socialist Left (PAIS) proclaimed Aylwin as its candidate.
Supporters of Augusto PinochetâÂÂs military dictatorship also underwent a lengthy process of deliberation to designate their candidate. The figure of Hernán BüchiâÂÂMinister of Finance and ideologue of the neoliberal reforms reintroduced in Chile after the 1982 crisisâÂÂgenerated sympathy due to his youthful image and his close association with the countryâÂÂs supposedly successful economic recovery. However, Büchi systematically refused to accept the option of being a candidate and declined to do so in a speech delivered on May 15, 1989, which went down in Chilean political history, as he acknowledged that between his personality and the responsibility being imposed on him there existed a âÂÂvital contradiction,â thus renouncing his pre-candidacy.
In that context, on August 6 National Renewal designated former Interior Minister Sergio Onofre Jarpa as its nominee through an internal vote in which he obtained 272 votes in favor, 3 against, and one blank;the Radical Democracy did the same with former senator Julio Durán Neumann, while the UDI proclaimed Hernán Büchi despite his refusal.
Büchi finally accepted being a candidate on July 11,and in a political negotiation, the Democracy and Progress pact and the Radical Democracy partynamed him as their nominee under the slogan âÂÂBüchi is the man.â On August 10, he received the formal backing of National Renewal, which withdrew the support it had given to Sergio Onofre Jarpa only four days earlier.
His campaign âÂÂgeneralissimoâ was former Pinochet minister and businessman Pablo Baraona, who assumed that role for economic coordination and as a member of the coalitionâÂÂs main party, National Renewal. In its initial stage, the position was held by Sebastián Piñera, also a member of National Renewal, who did not assume that role in the final candidacy.
However, the right did not expect a third option to emerge. Businessman Francisco Javier Errázuriz Talavera carried forward his presidential candidacy outside the political parties. Declaring himself independent, he stated that he had âÂÂvoted Yes with his heart in the Noâ in the 1988 plebiscite, and he sought a platform close to the political center to capture votes. He was supported by the Liberal Party, the Chilean Socialist Party (an instrumental party that supported the Yes, and unrelated to the current Socialist Party), and the National Advance party, as well as the National Party and the Party of the South, all parties with local leadership and limited media reach. The campaign slogan was: âÂÂErrázuriz, the opportunity for a dignified Chile,â and his campaign generalissimo was Carlos Concha.
The only presidential debate took place in the main studios of Channel 13 on October 9, 1989. It was moderated by Hernán Precht and featured journalists Rosario Guzmán Errázuriz, Bernardo de la Maza, Raquel Correa, and Claudio Sánchez Venegas, whose role was to ask questions to the candidates Hernán Büchi and Patricio Aylwin. The debate, which was the first to be televised in the history of Chile and Latin America, did not include the participation of candidate Francisco Javier Errázuriz, since, as Claudio Sánchez would later explain, âÂÂwe could hold a debate with four candidates, but with three it was more complicatedâ (alluding to the rejected candidacy of Fernando Monckeberg). According to Sánchez, ErrázurizâÂÂs absence from the debate was offset by dedicating an additional episode of the program Decisión 89 to the businessmanâÂÂs candidacy.