CHILE: The Horse Comes Back

• Share

Twenty-one years ago, fed up with hard times and the harsh hand of General Carlos ("The Horse") Ibanez, the people of Chile rose against their dictator and threw him out. Last week, tired of high prices and the do-nothing maneuvers of parliamentary politicos, the people voted to make Ibanez President for the next six years. Running far ahead of three rivals in a free and fair contest, Ibanez, now 74 but still hale and erect, fell short by only 28,000 votes of the majority required for election. Congress is expected to ratify the people's choice next month.

In plumping for the general, Chile took a sharp turn in its political life. An old-time cavalry man with perhaps the most forbidding air of personal dignidad in all Latin America, Ibafiez is the caricaturist's man on horseback. During his four years as President, he scourged bureaucrats, shipped opposing Congressmen off to penal colonies, and once threatened to deport the whole Supreme Court. Booted out, The Horse returned twice to run unsuccessfully for President with Nazi support. Always a totalitarian, he announced his candidacy this time from Buenos Aires with Juan Peron's endorsement.

First the Broom. Ibanez campaigned and won with a broom as his symbol. While President Gabriel Gonzalez Videla had gambled on a big, U.S.-financed industrialization program, agriculture sagged and the cost of living shot up 150% in five years. Many Chileans remembered that milk, now 8 pesos 40 centavos a bottle, cost only 40 centavos in the years of The Horse. People, especially the poor, clamored for stronger leadership. Haughtily, Ibanez accepted the cheers of his tattered backers. No great shakes as an extemporaneous speaker, he rasped through a brief election-night speech, then abruptly broke off with "Good night." His partisans, eager to cheer the hero, waited for more. In an annoyed voice, Ibanez barked: "I said 'Good night!' "

If The Horse's comeback signified a turn from democracy at home, it might also mean that Chile will be moving closer to the side of Peron's Argentina in Western Hemisphere affairs. Though he wears no man's horse collar, Ibanez makes no secret of his admiration for the New Argentina. Over & over in his campaign speeches he denounced "yanqui imperialism." Before he lays down the broom, aides say he will abrogate the U.S.-Chilean defense pact; as another mark of independence from the U.S., he may repeal the statute outlawing the Communist Party and re-establish diplomatic relations with Soviet Russia. As a thoroughgoing nationalist, Ibanez also favors nationalizing Chile's U.S.-owned copper mines, but he is not likely to try that while Chile's economy is in its present wobbly state.