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In the runup to congressional elections in December, which are expected to show that Chilean voters are increasingly moving from center-left to center-right, the governing Concertacion por la Democracia (CPD), which has won the three presidential elections held after Augusto Pinochet 17-year rule ended, is wrenched by a conflict between its two major partners, the Christian Democrats and the Socialists.
The conflict was triggered last week when it became known that the Socialist Party of sitting president Ricardo Lagos-the two previous presidents were from the Christian Democratic Party-had signed an electoral pact with the Communist Party, which was specifically excluded from the coalition when it was formed ten years ago. As a result of this pact, in the December elections the Socialist Party would support Communist candidates in two electoral districts where the CPD coalition has its own candidates-in one, from the Christian Democratic Party; in the other from the Partido por la Democracia (PPD), a minor partner in the coalition.
This action was immediately declared as a "deal breaker" by the secretary general of the Christian Democratic Party, Francisco Huenchumilla, who said it was not right for a party in the coalition "to unilaterally reach a pact with another party that opposes the government, without the agreement of the other parties and by which, precisely, the only one to benefit from it is the Socialist Party."
Huenchumilla added that the attitude of the Socialist Party president, Camilo Escalona, breaks with the coalition's decision-making style, "and this is why we have rejected Escalona's explanations, because we don't believe them to be within the spirit of the Concertacion."
Escalona justified the pact to support Communist Party candidates pointing out the Communists "have more than 5 percent electoral support but are excluded from Congress" and that the move was meant to "resolve this anomaly" while at the same time "gaining more votes and members of Congress for the Lagos administration."
Escalona dismissed out of hand the possibility that his party's decision to support two Communist candidates could turn into a crisis or breakup of the Concertación. He also rejected the demand made by the PPD coalition partner that publicly called for the Socialist Party to "rectify its position and fulfill its pledges to all of Chile," stating that the decision taken by the Socialists was "unanimous and irrevocable" and asking both the PPD and the Christian Democrats for "an understanding and realist look" at his party's effort, reiterating that, to gain a larger congressional representation for the Concertación, "it was necessary that no exclusions should exist in the nation's democratic process."
The right-of-center parties lost no time in condemning the Socialist-Communist pact and pointing out that it was a step towards restoring the Unidad Popular movement that in 1970 backed Salvador Allende, the first president elected on a Marxist-Leninist program in a non-Communist country of the western hemisphere, who drove Chile into economic disaster and was overthrown in 1973 in a widely supported coup headed by General Pinochet.
The conflict within the Concertacion coalition is weakening its prospects for the December congressional elections that are seen as a possible bellwether of gains by the right, which already did well in the presidential election early last year, when center-right candidate Joaquin Lavin lost by two percentage points to Lagos.
But, in addition, the largest and more centrist partners in the coalition, the Christian Democrats, are reeling from an embarrassing administrative blunder that caused its party president, Ricardo Hormazabal to resign and be replaced by Patricio Aylwin, Lagos's predecessor as the nation's president.
Elections for deputies and senators scheduled for December 11 had to be re-scheduled by the Lagos government to accommodate the Christian Democratic Party, which had failed to properly register its candidates with electoral authorities by the established deadline, effectively pushing themselves out of the race.
A five-day extension authorized by Congress will allow the Christian Democrats to participate in the election, seen as a test of support for the center-left Lagos government amid an economic slowdown that has kept unemployment rates high and is expected to continue by year's end.
"A very unfortunate situation occurred and it had to be resolved, because the majority of Chileans must have a chance to participate in the elections," said Interior Minister Jose Miguel Insulza.
The proposal to change the election date was passed by Congress in a record nine hours, which prompted President Lagos to needle his coalition partners by saying that, at an event in which he spoke recently, a university student had asked him why couldn't Congress act with the same speed in passing legislation making university studies free of charge.
This was one more sign of the frictions within the Concertacion por la Democracia that may well weaken its performance in the December elections-that is, if it doesn't come apart before then, which is a strong possibility.
Claudio Campuzano (claudio-campuzano@hotmail.com) is U.S, correspondent for the Latin American newsweekly Tiempos del Mundo and editorial page editor of the New York daily Noticias del Mundo. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com