Presidency of Salvador Allende - Allende Becomes President

Allende Becomes President

In the 1970 election, Allende ran with the Unidad Popular (UP or Popular Unity) coalition.

Succeeding the FRAP left-wing coalition, Unidad Popular comprised most of the Chilean Left: the Socialist Party, the Communist Party, the Radical Party, the Party of the Radical Left (until 1972), the Social Democratic Party, MAPU (Movimiento de Acción Popular Unitario) (in 1972, a splinter group - MAPU Obrero Campesino - emerged) and since 1971 the Christian Left.

Allende received a plurality with 36.3% of the vote. Christian Democrat Radomiro Tomic won 27.9% with a very similar platform to Allende's. Both Allende and Tomic promised to further nationalize the mineral industry and redistribute land and income among other new policies. Conservative incumbent president Jorge Alessandri received slightly under 35.8% of the vote.

According to the constitution, Congress had to decide between the two candidates who had received the most votes. The precedent set on the three previous occasions this situation had arisen since 1932 was for Congress simply to choose the candidate with the largest number of votes; indeed, former president Alessandri had been elected in 1958 with 31.6% of the popular vote.

In this case, however, there was an active campaign against Allende's confirmation by Congress, including clandestine efforts to prevent him taking office, and his presidency was ratified only after he signed a "Statute of Constitutional Guarantees". This statute was suggested as a means to convince the majority of Christian Democrat senators that favoured Allessandri, as they doubted Allende's allegiance to democracy, or at least the UP's. After signing the statute, members of the Christian Democrat party in the Senate gave their vote in favor of Allende. It has been argued that given that less than the majority of the voters voted for him, Allende did not have a clear "mandate" to embark in the policies put forward on his program. But the legality of the election itself is not in dispute.