Popular Unity election results Chile.

[Andy Bowden]

Does anyone have sources for how Popular Unity/Allende did in elections in Chile, in their time in Government?

I know Allende took 36% of the vote in the 1970 elections but I remember reading that Popular Unity's vote increased considerably in regional elections later.

If anyone could provide it it would be useful to lance the usual boil about Allende having no mandate.

[dez]

Salvador Allende won the presidential election with 36,3% of the votes, defeating the rightwinged candidate Jorge Alessandri (34,8%) and the candidate of the "progressive" wing of christian democracy, Rodomiro Tomic (27,8%). Not having a winner with more than 50% of the votes, the chilean constitution transferred to their parliament the decision to elect the president of their country. A dispute for power in the progressive block started, including the left of the christian democracy and the US - backed right. There was a tradition in which the congress always voted on the candidate with more votes, even if he didn't get over 50% of them.

So the CIA saw a caveat and started acting against what they perceived as a red threat (they considered that if chile "fell", the rest of continental latin america would too), and started to resort to terrorism and intimidation to influence even more in chilean politics and attempt to make the parliament work for them. They bombed the La moneda palace, they assassinated the marxist chief of the armed forces of allende, they assassinated a christian democrat ex minister that was simpathetic towards allende, they overall promoted generalized turmoil through militant neofascist organizations, and many more. Allende had a mandate, but it didn't mean crap when the guy in control of his armed forces (who was a "legalist", that is, claimed that he would follow the constitution) completely ignored it and used of his influence within the armed forces coupled with international backing to establish a bloody military dictatorship.

[Luís Henrique]

Does anyone have sources for how Popular Unity/Allende did in elections in Chile, in their time in Government?

I know Allende took 36% of the vote in the 1970 elections but I remember reading that Popular Unity's vote increased considerably in regional elections later.

If anyone could provide it it would be useful to lance the usual boil about Allende having no mandate.
I don't have it at the moment, but there is a Congressional paper from the US Senate Commission that investigated CIA actions in Chile that gives figures for elections after Allende's victory. If I recall correctly, the UP made 44% of the vote in the election you mention.

ETA: The paper is Covert Action in Chile, 1963-1973. Find it here:

http://foia.state.gov/Reports/ChurchReport.asp

ETA2: From the above document:
April 4 [1971] Allende's Popular Unity (UP) coalition garners 49.7 percent of the vote in 280 municipal elections.
March 4 [1973] In the Congressional elections, Allende's Popular Unity coalition wins 43.4 percent of the vote. Years in bracket by me.

Luís Henrique

[Andy Bowden]

Thank you very much for that Luis, thats similar to the figures I remember reading. A pretty damning piece of evidence against the claim that Allendes rule was unpopular and deserved to be overthrown by the military if his popularity was increasing.