Rightist Move In Chile

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32396, 8 September 1970, Page 13

Rightist Move In Chile

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) SANTIAGO (Chile), September 7. A spokesman for the Right-wing Chilean Presidential candidate, Mr Jorge Alesandri, yesterday announced that he would try to block Dr Salvador Allende in a Congressional castingvote on Chile’s Presidential election, the Associated Press has reported.

Mr Enrique Ortuzar, Mr Alesandri’s chief campaigner, has issued a statement calling on all Chileans to support in Congress the move to negate the socialist victory at the polls last Friday. Dr Allende defeated Mr Allesandri, a former President, by 39,000 votes, out of the 2.9 million cast. However he did not get the half-plus-one majority required for outright victory and Congress, in joint session on October 24, must choose between the two. Dr Allende’s “Popular] Unity” group, a coalition of six Left-wing groups holds 83 of the 200 seats in the bicameral legislature, it needs an extra 21 votes in Congress. Mr Alesandri’s supporters hold only 43. The Christian Democrats, whose candidate, Mr Radomiro Tomic ran a poor third, hold 74 seats and the key to the election. The Christian Democrats, however, gave a clear indica-

tion that they would back Dr Allende’s slim victory when Mr Tomic visited the Marxist candidate on Saturday “to congratulate him on his triumph.”

The campaign manager of Dr Allende, the first freelyelected Marxist Presidential candidate in Latin America, said that he was “not worried.” He has also issued a statement reassuring Chileans that “the Government of Salvador Allende will be strictly democratic and no-one will be plundered.” “Legitimate interests and legitimate rights will not be affected,” the statement added. Congress has traditionally (backed the winner at the polls, but it is under no conIstitutional obligation to do so. Dr Allende said in Santiago last night that his Government would sell Chilean copper to all nations, including Eastern Europe and Asian socialist countries—but did not intend that it should be sold as raw material. “We are ready to process it and industrialise it here,” he told reporters.

He said that there was a socialist world of 1200 million people, and Chile was prepared to trade with it as well as with the capitalist nations.