The Christian Democratic Party is a Christian democratic political party in Chile. There have been three Christian Democrat presidents in the past, Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, Patricio Aylwin, and Eduardo Frei Montalva.
The Socialist Party of Chile is a centre-left political party founded in 1933. Its historic leader was President of Chile Salvador Allende, who was deposed in a coup d'état by General Augusto Pinochet in 1973. The military junta immediately banned socialist, Marxist and other leftist political parties. Members of the Socialist party and other leftists were subject to violent suppression, including torture and murder, under the Pinochet dictatorship, and many went into exile. Twenty-seven years after the 1973 coup, Ricardo Lagos Escobar won the Presidency as the Socialist Party candidate in the 1999–2000 Chilean presidential election. Socialist Michelle Bachelet won the 2005–06 Chilean presidential election. She was the first female president of Chile and was succeeded by Sebastián Piñera in 2010. In the 2013 Chilean general election, she was again elected president, leaving office in 2018.
The Independent Democratic Union is a conservative and right-wing political party in Chile, founded in 1983. Its founder was the lawyer, politician and law professor Jaime Guzmán, a civilian allied with Augusto Pinochet. Guzmán was a senator from 1990 until his murder by communist guerrillas on April 1, 1991.
The Concertación, officially the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia, was a coalition of center-left political parties in Chile, founded in 1988. Presidential candidates under its banner won every election from when military rule ended in 1990 until the conservative candidate Sebastián Piñera won the Chilean presidential election in 2010. In 2013 it was replaced by New Majority coalition.
The Citizen Left Party of Chile, known until 2013 as Christian Left Party of Chile was a Chilean left-wing political party. Founded in 1971, in its early days it was suppressed by the Pinochet dictatorship. It was part of the Nueva Mayoría coalition, supporting the presidential candidacy president Michelle Bachelet in 2013.
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.
National Renewal is a liberal conservative political party in Chile. It is a member of Chile Vamos, a center-right to right-wing coalition. Sebastián Piñera, the former President of Chile, was a member of the party.
Ricardo Froilán Lagos Escobar is a Chilean lawyer, economist and social-democratic politician who served as president of Chile from 2000 to 2006. During the 1980s he was a well-known opponent of the Chilean military dictatorship and astounded contemporaries in 1988 by openly denouncing dictator Augusto Pinochet on live television. He served as Minister of Education from 1990 to 1992 and Minister of Public Works from 1994 to 1998 under president Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle before narrowly winning the 1999–2000 presidential election in a runoff against Independent Democrat Union (UDI) candidate Joaquín Lavín. Lagos was the third president from the center-left Coalition of Parties for Democracy to have governed Chile since 1990. He was succeeded on 11 March 2006 by Socialist Michelle Bachelet, from the same coalition. From 2007 to 2010 he served as a Special Envoy on Climate Change for the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Lagos made an unsuccessful bid to run for president in the 2017 Chilean general election.
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 it 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.
On 11 March 1990, Chile transitioned to a democracy, ending the military regime led by General Augusto Pinochet. This transition lasted 15 years. Unlike most democratic transitions led by either the elite or the people, this democratic transition process is known as an intermediate transition – a transition involving both the regime and the civil society. Throughout the transition, as the regime increased repressive violence, it simultaneously supported liberalization – progressively strengthening democratic institutions and gradually weakening that of the military.
A referendum on whether Augusto Pinochet, the head of a military dictatorship, should become president for eight years under resumed civilian rule was held in Chile on October 5, 1988. The "No" side won with 56% of the vote, marking the end of Pinochet's 16-and-a-half-year rule. Democratic elections were held in 1989, leading to the establishment of a new government in 1990.
The Chilean Social Democracy Party (Spanish: Partido Socialdemocracia Chilena, until August 1973 Radical Left Party was a Chilean political party of centre to centre-left orientation, formed by dissident Radicals in 1971.
The Liberal Party of Chile is a social-liberal political party in Chile, founded 26 January 2013 in Santiago, Chile. The main figure of the party is the deputy Vlado Mirosevic.
The Liberal-Republican Union was a Chilean right-wing political party founded in December 1987 from the merger of the Liberal and Republican parties. Its president was Hugo Zepeda Barrios and its secretary general was Gabriel Leon Echaíz.
The Democratic Alliance was a Chilean political coalition existing between 1983 and 1988 that was composed of political parties and organisations that opposed the military regime led by Augusto Pinochet.
The presidential primaries of the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia of the year 1993 was the electoral method to define the presidential candidate of such Chilean coalition, for the presidential election of 1993. In them Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, son of the ex- president Eduardo Frei Montalva and candidate for the Christian Democratic Party (PDC) faced Ricardo Lagos Escobar, candidate for the Socialist Party of Chile (PS), the Party for Democracy (PPD), the Radical Party (PR) and the Chilean Social Democracy Party.
The presidential primaries of the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia of 1999 were the electoral system to define the presidential candidate of such Chilean coalition for the 1999 presidential election. It was an innovation of the conglomerate when nominating for the first time its candidate through a primary direct and binding election, unlike the primary of 1993.
The presidential primaries of the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia of 2009 were the method of election of the presidential candidate of such a Chilean coalition for the 2009 presidential election. Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, former President of Chile (1994–2000), a member of the Christian Democrat Party (PDC) and candidate for his party, the Socialist Party of Chile (PS) and the Party for Democracy (PPD), and José Antonio Gómez, a militant and candidate of the Radical Social Democratic Party.
Laura Mariana Aylwin Oyarzún is a Chilean teacher, historian and politician. She was born into the Aylwin family; her father, Patricio Aylwin, was the 30th president of Chile from 1990 to 1994, years where he led the beginnings of the Transition to democracy from Augusto Pinochet dictatorship.
