The Dictator's New Clothes

Pinochet's constitution wins big, but starts small

"Vota si!" The exhortation seemed to come from every billboard, radio and TV set in the country, and despite a muted chorus of dissent, the issue was never really in doubt. Last week, in a national plebiscite held seven years to the day after the violent overthrow of their last freely elected government, Chile's voters roundly endorsed the military regime of General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte. The vote ratified a new constitution that gives Pinochet, 64, at least eight more years as "transitional" President--and suggests the full rebirth of direct democracy only in 1997. As the returns trickled in, tens of thousands of jubilant demonstrators gathered outside the presidential headquarters in Santiago, waving banners and chanting "!Gracias a Pinochet!" Obviously moved, the dictator called the results a "heroic gesture" and a "triumph over Communism."

It was at the very least a personal triumph for Pinochet, who had tailored the new constitution to his own specifications. The charter outlaws doctrines "founded in class struggle" (a code phrase for Marxism) and commits Chile to a free-market economy. And though it specifies a return to democracy, the pace it mandates is leisurely enough to keep Pinochet in office until 1989--and possibly eight more years after that--when open presidential elections must finally be held.

In addition, many of the emergency powers Pinochet has wielded since 1973 would remain intact. Buried among the constitution's guarantees of individual rights is an article allowing the President to arrest individuals without charge and suspend constitutional freedoms at the mere "danger of the perturbation of internal peace." The new constitution seems to offer Chileans the sort of authoritarianism they have had all along. Only in 1997 may they elect their President; until then, the choice will be made for them.

In holding the plebiscite, Pinochet may have been trying to improve his reputation abroad. If so, the attempt received an embarrasing riposte on the eve of the vote: Amnesty International released a detailed report that cited a dramatic increase in arbitrary arrests and systematic torture in Chile over the past two months. According to the report, Chilean secret police have rounded up between 1,000 and 2,000 people since July 15. Most were beaten and tortured; many have not been heard from since their arrests.

In the end, the Chilean people appear to have voted not so much for Pinochet's vision of the future as for the stability and relative prosperity of the present. Most Chileans, especially the women, who make up 56% of the electorate, still remember the critical shortages and triple-digit inflation of the Allende years. So when the sex-segregated voting booths opened last week, both men and women turned out in force, some of them nervously determined to reject Pinochet, but most willing to support him as long as the good times last. The final tally: 67.6% of voters endorsed the constitution.

It is not yet clear what Pinochet intends to do with his victory. Last week he outlined an ambitious program of social security reform, new housing and economic growth for the country, and he insisted to reporters that he is not interested in serving beyond the next eight years. Sources close to him say that he may want to establish an authoritarian but benevolent dictatorship rather like that of Francisco Franco's Spain, without becoming the geriatric embarrassment that Franco was in his last years.

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