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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Chile
Index
After the boinazo of May 1993, the international
press
often referred to the Aylwin administration as a
co-government, in
which the military and civilians shared power equally.
According to
this view, Chile's democracy was emasculated, with a
president
unable to resist the military and with a Congress acting
as a
rubber-stamp body. This view seemed to be supported by the
fact
that President Aylwin lacked the power to appoint,
promote, and
dismiss officers. The president cannot appoint or fire the
commanders in chief of each service. Furthermore, military
officers
seem to be immune to prosecution for human rights abuses.
In fact,
the notion of "co-government" is simplistic and fails to
explain
some of the limited yet significant developments under the
Aylwin
government. In 1993 Genaro Arriagada, a leader within the
Christian
Democratic Party (Partido Demócrata Cristiano--PDC),
referred to a
civil-military opposition to Aylwin's policies. This
suggests that
the confrontation is not merely one between the military
and
civilians. Whereas the ruling center-left coalition known
as the
Coalition of Parties for Democracy (Concertación de
Partidos por la
Democracia--CPD) held an advantage in the Chamber of
Deputies
(seventy to forty-nine), the military was protected by a
majority
in the Senate, thanks to the electoral engineering of the
Pinochet
regime that provided for nine designated senators. Without
the
designated senators, the CPD would have had a majority in
the
Senate (twenty-two to sixteen) from 1989 until March 1994.
The
designated senators, appointed by Pinochet, gave the
right-wing
opposition a three-seat advantage in the Senate (after
1991, only
a two-seat advantage, with the death of a designated
senator).
The Aylwin administration was willing to raise issues
in civilmilitary relations even when it was clear that it would
not win. In
mid-1992 the Aylwin government proposed a series of
constitutional
reforms that would have limited the prerogatives of the
military by
allowing the president to appoint, promote, and remove
officers. In
addition, the president would have the power to appoint
and remove
the commanders in chief of the armed forces, although this
would
not apply to the current commanders. The reforms were
opposed by
the National Renewal (Renovación Nacional) and the
Independent
Democratic Union (Unión Demócrata Independiente--UDI),
which
suffered electoral setbacks in the June 23, 1992,
municipal
elections and were afraid of further losses. The army also
opposed
the reforms in a leaked paper published by La Tercera
de la
Hora, a leading daily. In the prosecution of military
officers
for human rights abuses, an unusual coalition between the
right and
left derailed an initiative by the Aylwin government to
complete
the process.
Unable to successfully carry out major constitutional
reforms
in relation to the military, the Aylwin administration
exercised
its power in other ways. The Chilean president can veto
the
promotions of military officers, and in late 1993 Aylwin
adroitly
used the threat of the veto to influence the matter of
when
Pinochet would step down as army commander in chief.
The Ministry of Defense lacks the power to initiate
actions,
but it can selectively stall army initiatives through
administrative inaction. It deliberately delayed the
signing of
decrees on postings and promotions, in addition to the
sale of
armaments--one of the major causes of the May 1993
boinazo.
The co-government argument also fails to take into
consideration the effects of time. As Eduardo Frei
Ruiz-Tagle
prepared to take office as president on March 11, 1994,
the
political right was becoming less protective of the
military and
the political system it had created. The largest
right-wing party,
the National Renewal, showed signs that it was willing to
consider
amendments limiting the military's prerogatives,
especially after
the army was involved in telephone-tapping conversations
of
National Renewal members in 1992. Even the extreme
right-wing UDI
showed signs that it was weary of some of the features of
the
military-sponsored system, such as the
binomial electoral
system (see Glossary), which hurt the party in the December
1993
elections.
Data as of March 1994
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