Chile: Crucial Decision

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Chile is an unlikely place for such a scenario. Unlike its Latin neighbors, it has a record of democratic stability and honest elections dating back to 1932. Under President Eduardo Frei, who is prevented by the constitution from seeking a second consecutive six-year term, Chile has made some outstanding progress. In a farsighted reform program, Frei's government has expropriated 1,224 private estates and distributed the land to 30,000 families. It increased income tax revenues 80% by catching wealthy tax dodgers, and has built 400,000 housing units since 1964. In the past few months, the rate has been up to one unit every 13 minutes. During Frei's six-year term, university enrollment has increased 124% while infant mortality has dropped from 102 to 79 per 1,000.

Endemic Inflation. But Chile, like its neighbors, suffers from a lack of industrialization and a heavy dependence on fluctuating world raw-materials prices, which gives many Chileans the impression that they are mere pawns in a world controlled by conniving capitalists. Worst of all is Chile's endemic inflation, which ran 28% last year and is presently climbing at the rate of more than 2% per month. More than half of Chile's families subsist on less than $30 a month. The cities are pockmarked with ugly slums, and life in the countryside remains burdensome and poverty-stricken for the vast majority of peasants.

The situation has created dangerously conflicting anxieties in the electorate, and those concerns are reflected in the spectrum of presidential candidates. Allende, a physician by training, has done most to dramatize the tragic conditions. As a panacea, he promises to nationalize mining, banking and foreign trade, and see to it that every Chilean baby has a pint of milk a day.

Coalition Speculation. On the center left is Radomiro Tomic, the former ambassador to the U.S., who is the candidate of Frei's Christian Democratic Party. Tomic, the 56-year-old father of nine, has criticized the Frei government's failure to reduce inflation and to move from "Chileanization" (51% ownership) to full nationalization of the copper industry.

On the right is former President Jorge Alessandri, 74, who is backed by the country's business interests but retains a carefully preserved common touch. Every Saturday morning he carries a wreath to the grave of his father Arturo, a onetime President whom the Chileans revere as "the lion of Tarapaca." To hundreds of thousands of poor rows (broken ones) who have flocked from the large estates to Santiago, Jorge Alessandri is himself a father figure. "There is too much politics," he says, "and not enough work."

Since none of the candidates is likely to win a majority in the Sept. 4 election, the contest will probably be settled next month by the Chilean Congress. Any outcome is possible. But the reluctance of Allende and Tomic to create ill feeling by criticizing each other during the campaign could be a sign that they are considering the possibility of a leftist coalition if Alessandri should poll the most votes.