New Power at the Polls

From the parched northern deserts south to the icy latitudes bordering Antarctica, some 2,000,000 Chileans, including 600,000 new voters, went to the polls last week. The voters were merely choosing municipal officials. But the elections were widely regarded as a barometer for the presidential campaign next year. Out of the ballot boxes emerged a major new power in Chilean politics: the Christian Democrats, a left-of-center but anti-Communist party that rolled up 22.8% of the vote and thus became the biggest single political group in the country.

Led by Eduardo Frei, 53, a widely respected Senator and professor of labor law at Santiago's Catholic University, the Christian Democrats ran their first presidential candidate in 1958; in 1961's congressional elections they polled 15% of the vote. They argue for an independent but Western-oriented foreign policy, demand thoroughgoing economic and social reform at home. In last week's election they drew strength from conservatives disheartened by Chile's continuing economic crisis (living costs went up almost 40% in the last 15 months), and from non-Communist liberals fed up with the far left.

Frei's party is still weaker than either President Jorge Alessandri's three-party government coalition or the Communist-dominated Popular Action Front, which came within a shade of winning the presidency in 1958. But both the government coalition and the Popular Action Front lost ground in last week's voting, and Frei thinks that they will continue to slip, paving his way to the presidency in 1964. "There are three things working in our favor," says Frei. "First, people are tired of the present political juxtaposition. Second, people don't want a rightist government. Third, people do not want a Communist government.''

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