Jorge Alessandri - Senate and Presidency

Senate and Presidency

In 1956, the Liberal Party selected him as a candidate for a Santiago Senate seat, which he won with a substantial majority in 1957. However, Alessandri was seen as rather conservative by the Liberal Party, and in the end it was the moderate wing of the Conservative Party which secured his position as an independent candidate for the Presidency, with his campaign majoring on his economic expertise.

In March 1958, he edged the united left candidate for the Presidency, Salvador Allende by 32.2% to 28.5%, with Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei Montalva polling 20.5%. In the event of no candidate securing an overall majority of the popular vote, the choice of president fell to Congress, which duly chose Alessandri, who had a coalition of Conservatives, Liberals and Radical Party congressmen behind him.

Alessandri initially focused, unsurprisingly, on economic issues, particularly on controlling inflation and balancing the state budget, and he liberalised Chile's tariff régime. However, he once again froze public sector pay, unleashing widespread industrial unrest.

In May 1960, a strong earthquake struck the densely populated area between Concepción and Puerto Montt, causing more than USD 400 million in damage. Reconstruction and relief soon drowned out other issues.

In 1961, elections to Congress saw massive losses for the Conservatives and Liberals, with the Radicals, alone of the coalition parties, doing well. This forced Alessandri to nominate more Ministers from the Radical Party, which in turned moved his government to the left. This tied in with the more activist foreign development policy pursued by John F Kennedy in the wake of the Cuban Revolution of 1959, in the shape of the Alliance for Progress. Together, these unleashed a wave of progressive tax and agricultural reforms. Despite this, distribution of land ownership remained grossly unequal.

Alessandri's period of office ended in 1964, and he was succeeded by his Christian Democrat opponent of 1958, the centist Eduardo Frei Montalva. Alessandri returned to managing his paper factory.