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Country Commercial Guides for FY 2000:
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CHAPTER III: POLITICAL ENVIRONMENT
Nature of Political Relationship with the United States
U.S.-Chilean relations are excellent. President Frei made a state visit to the U.S. in February 1997. In April 1998, President Clinton attended the Second Summit of the Americas in Santiago and led a delegation of seven cabinet officials for a reciprocal state visit to Chile. Chile is an active participant in numerous international organizations and supports a wide variety of key U.S. policy objectives.
Major Political Issues Affecting the Business Climate
Chilean politics is marked by broad consensus among the major parties about the importance of a democratic political system and a free-market economic system. Key differences between the governing coalition and the rightist opposition involve strategies for, and the role of government in, addressing issues such as poverty eradication, health care, infrastructure and education.
Brief Synopsis of the Political System
The government of President Eduardo Frei, a Christian Democrat leading a coalition of four center-left parties, will leave office in March 2000 after elctions to be held in December 1999. Frei won an overwhelming victory in the December 1993 elections that brought him into office, beginning his six-year term on March 11, 1994, when he succeeded Patricio Aylwin (also a Christian Democrat). An engineer by training, Frei was a successful businessman before entering politics in the 1980s. Many of his closest advisors are U.S.-trained and share his commitment to Chile's successful free-market economic model.
Frei heads Chile's powerful executive branch and his center/left coalition has a majority of the elected seats in both the lower and upper houses of Congress (the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate). Nonetheless, the balance of power in the upper house is tipped toward the center-right opposition by nine appointed "institutional" senators.
For much of this century, Chilean politics has been marked by a three-way division between the political right, center and left, with each holding roughly one-third of the vote. Chilean politics today revolve around two large political blocs: the center-left governing coalition and the center-right opposition. The former includes the centrist Christian Democratic and Radical parties and the moderate leftist Party for Democracy and the Socialist Party. The latter includes the National Renewal Party and the Independent Democratic Union. Chile also has several small fringe-left parties, including a largely unreconstructed Communist Party, which are not represented in the Executive Branch or the Congress, but which have elected representatives in some local governments.
Election Schedule
December 1999: Presidential elections
March 2000: Presidential inauguration
June 2000: Municipal elections
December 2001: Congressional elections (all Deputies and half the elected Senators)
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[end of document] Note* International Copyright, United States Government, 1998 (or other year of first publication). All rights under foreign copyright laws are reserved. All portions of this publication are protected against any type or form of reproduction, communications to the public and the preparation of adaptations, arrangement and alterations outside the United States. U. S. copyright is not asserted under the U.S. Copyright Law, Title17, United States Code.
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