Setback for Frei

Municipal elections ordinarily carry little political importance in Chile, but President Eduardo Frei chose to lift last week's to the status of a national plebiscite. "It will be an opportunity," he said, "for the nation to say whether it is with the opposition or with the President it elected to carry out institutional reforms." Chileans took the opportunity, all right, but the results were not what Frei and just about everyone else had expected. While each of Chile's six other parties made substantial gains at the polls, Frei's Christian Democrats lost ground.

Miscalculation has become a mark of the three-year administration of Frei, 56, a former Santiago University law professor. When he swept to a landslide victory over a Marxist candidate in 1964, Frei seemed an ideal choice. An antiCommunist and a knowledgeable friend of the U.S., he professed that his aim was to transform Chile into a modern society without too much turmoil, to conduct what he called "a revolution in liberty."

Self-Righteous Zeal. Frei proved to be a dedicated reformer but a poor politician. In proceeding with his revolution, he managed to offend just about everyone. The Communists attacked his land-reform program because it stole, with little change, the thunder from their land-for-the-masses campaign promises. The landlords were unhappy because the government paid low prices for the expropriated property. A united front of leftist parties called FRAP attacked his plan to "Chileanize" the country's foreign-owned copper industry because it stopped short of nationalization. The rich complained about having to pay income taxes; the middle class griped about Frei's anti-inflationary moves, which held down wage increases. The poor fretted that Promo-don Popular--Frei's war on poverty--did not do enough to clear up the slums or provide more food for their children.

Frei compounded his problems by refusing to compromise or soften his reforms and by pushing his programs with such self-righteous zeal that he often offended even would-be supporters. He started a running feud with the opposition-controlled Senate, which last month even denied him permission to travel to the U.S. on a state visit and allowed him to fly to Punta del Este this week only as a gesture of national pride. It was largely to show the Senate who was boss that Frei put such emphasis on the municipal elections, confident that a popular surge of votes for his Christian Democrats would intimi date his opponents. The people failed to respond to the president's pleas for a vote of confidence, giving his party only 35% of the vote. That outcome can only strengthen the obduracy of his enemies.

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