Chile’s Elections: The New Face of the Right

Issue Date April 2000
Volume 11
Issue 2
Page Numbers 70-77
file Print
arrow-down-thin Download from Project MUSE
external View Citation

Read the full essay here.

The unexpectedly strong showing of media-savvy rightist candidate Joaquín Lavín in the 1999 presidential elections and the move to the center by Concertación candidate Ricardo Lagos suggest that Chile has begun to put the ghosts of Allende and Pinochet to rest.

About the Author

Arturo Fontaine Talavera is the director of the Centro de Estúdios Públicos (CEP), a prominent public policy research institute in Santiago, Chile, and also serves as editorial director of the institute’s quarterly publication, Estúdios Públicos. He is a professor at the Institute of Political Science of the Catholic University of Chile, where he teaches political philosophy. He is the author of the novels Oír su voz (1992) and Cuando éramos inmortales, which was published by Alfaguara in 1998.

View all work by Arturo Fontaine Talavera

Further Reading

Volume 11, Issue 2

Chile’s Elections: Change and Continuity

Lavín’s strong showing did not represent an “earthquake” or a dramatic change in the electoral landscape. Voting patterns have remained basically unchanged since 1988, giving Lagos a clear mandate to…

Volume 31, Issue 4

The Return of the Latin American Military?

When asked by presidents to intervene domestically for crime-fighting or civil-order purposes, Latin American militaries face a number of risks and have a degree of freedom to tailor their responses…

Volume 27, Issue 3

Delegative Democracy Revisited: Chile’s Crisis of Representation

Delegative presidencies have not been a problem in post-Pinochet Chile, but the rise of mass protest movements suggests that the country’s new democracy has gone too far in the direction…