Chile: Swing to the Right

Five years ago, Chile's Eduardo Frei and his Christian Democratic Party capitalized on widespread fear of a Communist election victory to capture the presidency and, in the process, polled the biggest vote ever garnered by a Chilean political party. In two subsequent elections, however, the party's appeal has skidded sharply from the 55% of the vote it drew in 1964. Last week, in the last congressional elections before the 1970 presidential campaign, the Christian Democrats slipped even farther, polling less than a third of the vote. Surprisingly, the biggest beneficiary was not Chile's active extreme left, but the right-wing National...