The territory of Chile has been populated since at least 3000 BC. By the 16th century, Spanish invaders began to raid the region of present-day Chile, and the territory was a colony between 1540 and 1818, when it gained independence from Spain. The country's economic development was successively marked by the export of first agricultural produce, then saltpeter and later copper. The wealth of raw materials led to an economic upturn, but also led to dependency, and even wars with neighboring states. Chile was governed during most of its first 150 years of independence by different forms of restricted government, where the electorate was carefully vetted and controlled by an elite.
Chile's government is a representative democratic republic, whereby the President of Chile is both head of state and head of government, and of a formal multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the president and by their cabinet. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the two chambers of the National Congress. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature of Chile.
Juan Antonio Ríos Morales was a Chilean political figure who served as president of Chile from 1942 to 1946, during the height of World War II. He died in office.
Presidential elections were held in Chile on 4 September 1970. Salvador Allende of the Popular Unity alliance won a narrow plurality in a race against independent Jorge Alessandri and Christian Democrat Radomiro Tomic, before having his victory confirmed by a congressional vote after the Christian Democrats voted in favour of his candidacy.
This article gives an overview of liberal and radical parties in Chile. It is limited to liberal and radical parties with substantial support, mainly proved by having had a representation in parliament. The sign ⇒ means a reference to another party in that scheme. For inclusion in this scheme, parties do not necessarily need to have labeled themselves as a liberal party.
Jorge Eduardo Alessandri Rodríguez was the 26th President of Chile from 1958 to 1964, and was the candidate of the Chilean right in the crucial presidential election of 1970, which he lost to Salvador Allende. He was the son of Arturo Alessandri, who was president from 1920 to 1925 and again from 1932 to 1938.
Pedro Abelino Aguirre Cerda was a Chilean political figure, educator, and lawyer who served as the 22nd president of Chile from 1938 until his death in 1941. A member of the Radical Party since 1906, he was chosen by the left-wing Popular Front coalition as its candidate for the 1938 presidential election and won. He had previously served as deputy for San Felipe, Putaendo and Los Andes from 1915 to 1918, Minister of the Interior from January to September 1918 under president Juan Luis Sanfuentes, deputy for Santiago from 1918 to 1921, Minister of Justice and Public Instruction from 1920 to 1921 under president Arturo Alessandri, and senator for Concepción from 1921 to 1927. He died two years and eleven months into his presidency on November 25, 1941, at the age of 62, from tuberculosis.
Arturo Fortunato Alessandri Palma was a Chilean political figure and reformer who served thrice as president of Chile, first from 1920 to 1924, then from March to October 1925, and finally from 1932 to 1938.
General elections were held in Chile on 11 December 1993 to elect the President, members of the Chamber of Deputies and elected members of the Senate. Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle of the Concertación alliance was elected President, and the alliance also won a majority of seats in the Chamber of Deputies and maintained its majority in the Senate. As of 2024, this is the most recent presidential election that did not result in a runoff.
Presidential elections were held in Chile on 4 September 1946. The result was a victory for Gabriel González Videla of the Radical Party, who received 40% of the popular vote and 75% of the Congressional vote.
Presidential elections were held in Chile on Friday, June 25, 1920. The Liberal Alliance candidate Arturo Alessandri defeated the National Union candidate Luis Barros Borgoño in the last Chilean presidential election to have been decided by an electoral college. The results were a turning point for Chilean history, setting the end of the succession of oligarch and 19th-century governments and the start of a new, modern one run by the middle class.
The Radical Democracy, was a Chilean centre-right political party. The party, created in 1969, was dissolved in 1973, and reappeared in 1983 before disbanding permanently in 1990.
The Conservative Party of Chile was one of the principal Chilean political parties since its foundation in 1836 until 1948, when it broke apart. In 1953 it reformed as the United Conservative Party and in 1966 joined with the Liberal Party to form the National Party. The Conservative Party was a right-wing party, originally created to be the clericalist, pro-Catholic Church group.
The Liberal Party was a Chilean political party created by a faction of pipiolos in 1849. After the conservative victory in the Chilean Civil War of 1829 the liberals became the principal opposition party to the Conservative Party. During the Liberal Party's early history one of its main goal was to create a new constitution to replace the Chilean Constitution of 1833. Rigged election helped to prevent the Liberal Party's presidential candidates to be elected until 1861, during that time elements of the liberal party made attempts to overthrow the government, these were the Revolution of 1851 and the Revolution of 1859. These failed insurrections led many liberals to emigrate, among them Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna. In 1863 a group of liberal split off to form the Radical Party which would hold power from 1938 to 1952. Originally an anticlericalist party that championed classical liberalism, the liberals later became a right-wing party.
The Radical Party was a Chilean political party. It was formed in 1863 in Copiapó by a split in the Liberal Party. Not coincidentally, it was formed shortly after the organization of the Grand Lodge of Chile, and has maintained a close relationship with Chilean Freemasonry throughout its life. As such, it represented the anticlericalist position in Chilean politics, and was instrumental in producing the "theological reforms" in Chilean law in the early 1880s. These laws removed the cemeteries from the control of the Roman Catholic Church, established a civil registry of births and death in place of the previous recordkeeping of the church, and established a civil law of matrimony, which removed the determination of validity of marriages from the church. Prior to these laws, it was impossible for non-Catholics to contract marriage in Chile, and meant that any children they produced were illegitimate. Non-Catholics had also been barred from burial in Catholic cemeteries, which were virtually the only cemeteries in the country; instead, non-Catholics were buried in the beaches, and even on the Santa Lucia Hill in Santiago, which, in the 19th century, functioned as Santiago's dump.
The Parliamentary Era in Chile began in 1891, at the end of the Civil War, and spanned until 1925 and the establishment of the 1925 Constitution. Also called "pseudo-parliamentary" period or "Parliamentary Republic", this period was thus named because it established a quasi-parliamentary system based on the interpretation of the 1833 Constitution following the defeat of President José Manuel Balmaceda during the Civil War. As opposed to a "true parliamentary" system, the executive was not subject to the legislative power but checks and balances of executive over the legislature were weakened. The President remained the head of state but its powers and control of the government were reduced. The Parliamentary Republic lasted until the 1925 Constitution drafted by President Arturo Alessandri and his minister José Maza. The new Constitution created a presidential system, which lasted, with several modifications, until the 1973 coup d'état.
The United Liberal Party was a Chilean liberal political party which existed between 1930 and 1933.
The Coalition, also but rarely known as the Conservative Coalition, was a Chilean coalition formed in 1891 after the 1891 Chilean Civil War and it was the main opposer of the Liberal Alliance. The Coalition was formed by the Conservative Party, democrats, nationals and different liberal organizations. Along with the Liberal Alliance, it was one of the two parties of the bipartisan system of that time. Between 1920 and 1925 it took as name National Union and during that period it was formed by the Conservative Party, the unionist liberals, the nationals and the liberal democrats.
The Presidential Republic is the period in the history of Chile spanning from the approval of the 1925 Constitution on 18 September 1925, under the government of Arturo Alessandri Palma, to the fall of the Popular Unity government headed by the President Salvador Allende on 11 September 1973. The period spans the same time as the "Development inwards" period in Chilean economic history.
