Looking Back at the Defeat of Chile’s Concertación: The Death of the Moderate Left or Its Gross Failure to Mount a Credible Presidential Candidate?
Presidential candidates in Chile running under the center- left coalition «Concert of Parties for Democracy» (Concertación de Partidos para la Democracia), had won every election since the end of military rule in Chile in 1990, with the recent exception of the 2010 presidential race. The reasons for the coalition’s defeat after 20 years of dominance of Chilean politics as well as the possible reemergence of the coalition with a winning presidential candidate for the 2013 election require a closer examination.
A general consensus exists that the 2010 defeat of Concertación was due to the electorate’s dissatisfaction with its candidate, as well as the electoral influence that presidential candidates tend to exert in Chilean presidential elections. Although Chile was under a Concertación government for 20 years, the power shift stresses the serious shortcomings of what turned out to be an unpopular candidate. The coalition’s unhappiness with its candidate, former President Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, and the splintering of votes within Concertación created by competing first-round candidates, Jorge Arrate and Marco Enriquez-Ominami, was the final factor undermining Frei’s prospects. However, the palpable strength of a popular opposition presidential candidate, in addition to critical mistakes made under Concertación’s power, significantly contributed to the coalition’s defeat.
This analysis was prepared by COHA Research Associate Julissa Delgado
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