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History of Chile

The territory of Chile has been populated since at least 3000 BC. By the 16th century, Spanish invaders began to raid the region of present-day Chile, and the territory was a colony between 1540 and 1818, when it gained independence from Spain. The country's economic development was successively marked by the export of first agricultural produce, then saltpeter and later copper. The wealth of raw materials led to an economic upturn, but also led to dependency, and even wars with neighboring states. Chile was governed during most of its first 150 years of independence by different forms of restricted government, where the electorate was carefully vetted and controlled by an elite.

Failure to address the economic and social increases and increasing political awareness of the less-affluent population, as well as indirect intervention and economic funding to the main political groups by the CIA, as part of the Cold War, led to a political polarization under Socialist president Salvador Allende. This in turn resulted in the 1973 coup d'état and the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, whose subsequent 17-year regime was responsible for many human rights violations and deep market-oriented economic reforms. In 1990, Chile made a peaceful transition to democracy and initiate a succession of democratic governments.

Early history (pre-1540)
About 10,000 years ago, migrating Native Americans settled in the fertile valleys and coastal areas of what is present-day Chile. Pre-Hispanic Chile was home to over a dozen different Amerindian societies. The current prevalent theories are that the initial arrival of humans to the continent took place either along the Pacific coast southwards in a rather rapid expansion long preceding the Clovis culture, or even trans-Pacific migration. These theories are backed by findings in the Monte Verde archaeological site, which predates the Clovis site by thousands of years. Specific early human settlement sites from the very early human habitation in Chile include the Cueva del Milodon and the Pali Aike Crater's lava tube.

Despite such diversity, it is possible to classify the indigenous people into three major cultural groups: the northern people, who developed rich handicrafts and were influenced by pre-Incan cultures; the Araucanian culture, who inhabited the area between the river Choapa and the island of Chiloé, and lived primarily off agriculture; and the Patagonian culture composed of various nomadic tribes, who supported themselves through fishing and hunting (and who in Pacific/Pacific Coast immigration scenario would be descended partly from the most ancient settlers). No elaborate, centralized, sedentary civilization reigned supreme.

The Araucanians, a fragmented society of hunters, gatherers, and farmers, constituted the largest Native American group in Chile. Mobile people who engaged in trade and warfare with other indigenous groups lived in scattered family clusters and small villages. Although the Araucanians had no written language, they did use a common tongue. Those in what became central Chile were more settled and more likely to use irrigation. Those in the south combined slash-and-burn agriculture with hunting. Of the three Araucanian groups, the one that mounted the fiercest resistance to the attempts at seizure of their territory were the Mapuche, meaning "people of the land."

The Inca Empire briefly extended their empire into what is now northern Chile, where they collected tribute from small groups of fishermen and oasis farmers but were not able to establish a strong cultural presence in the area. As the Spaniards would after them, the Incas encountered fierce resistance and so were unable to exert control in the south. During their attempts at conquest in 1460 and again in 1491, the Incas established forts in the Central Valley of Chile, but they could not colonize the region. The Mapuche fought against the Sapa Tupac Inca Yupanqui (c. 1471–1493) and his army. The result of the bloody three-day confrontation known as the Battle of the Maule was that the Inca conquest of the territories of Chile ended at the Maule river, which subsequently became the boundary between the Incan empire and the Mapuche lands until the arrival of the Spaniards.

Scholars speculate that the total Araucanian population may have numbered 1.5 million at most when the Spaniards arrived in the 1530s; a century of European conquest and disease reduced that number by at least half. During the conquest, the Araucanians quickly added horses and European weaponry to their arsenal of clubs and bows and arrows. They became adept at raiding Spanish settlements and, albeit in declining numbers, managed to hold off the Spaniards and their descendants until the late 19th century. The Araucanians' valor inspired the Chileans to mythologize them as the nation's first national heroes, a status that did nothing, however, to elevate the wretched living standard of their descendants.

The Chilean Patagonia located south of the Calle-Calle River in Valdivia was composed of many tribes, mainly Tehuelches, who were considered giants by Spaniards during Magellan's voyage of 1520.

The name Patagonia comes from the word patagón used by Magellan to describe the native people whom his expedition thought to be giants. It is now believed the Patagons were actually Tehuelches with an average height of 1.80 m (~5′11″) compared to the 1.55 m (~5′1″) average for Spaniards of the time.

The Argentine portion of Patagonia includes the provinces of Neuquén, Río Negro, Chubut and Santa Cruz, as well as the eastern portion of Tierra del Fuego archipelago. The Argentine politico-economic Patagonic Region includes the Province of La Pampa.

The Chilean part of Patagonia embraces the southern part of Valdivia, Los Lagos in Lake Llanquihue, Chiloé, Puerto Montt and the Archaeological site of Monte Verde, also the fiords and islands south to the regions of Aisén and Magallanes, including the west side of Tierra del Fuego and Cape Horn.

European conquest and colonization (1540–1810)
The first European to sight Chilean territory was Ferdinand Magellan, who crossed the Strait of Magellan on November 1, 1520. However, the title of discoverer of Chile is usually assigned to Diego de Almagro. Almagro was Francisco Pizarro's partner, and he received the Southern area (Nueva Toledo). He organized an expedition that brought him to central Chile in 1537, but he found little of value to compare with the gold and silver of the Incas in Peru. Left with the impression that the inhabitants of the area were poor, he returned to Peru, later to be garotted following defeat by Hernando Pizarro in a Civil War.

After this initial excursion there was little interest from colonial authorities in further exploring modern-day Chile. However, Pedro de Valdivia, captain of the army, realizing the potential for expanding the Spanish empire southward, asked Pizarro's permission to invade and conquer the southern lands. With a couple of hundred men, he subdued the local inhabitants and founded the city of Santiago de Nueva Extremadura, now Santiago de Chile, on February 12, 1541.

Although Valdivia found little gold in Chile he could see the agricultural richness of the land. He continued his explorations of the region west of the Andes and founded over a dozen towns and established the first encomiendas. The greatest resistance to Spanish rule came from the Mapuche people, who opposed European conquest and colonization until the 1880s; this resistance is known as the Arauco War. Valdivia died at the Battle of Tucapel, defeated by Lautaro, a young Mapuche toqui (war chief), but the European conquest was well underway.

The Spaniards never subjugated the Mapuche territories; various attempts at conquest, both by military and peaceful means, failed. The Great Uprising of 1598 swept all Spanish presence south of the Bío-Bío River except Chiloé (and Valdivia which was decades later reestablished as a fort), and the great river became the frontier line between Mapuche lands and the Spanish realm. North of that line cities grew up slowly, and Chilean lands eventually became an important source of food for the Viceroyalty of Peru.

Valdivia became the first governor of the Captaincy General of Chile. In that post, he obeyed the viceroy of Peru and, through him, the King of Spain and his bureaucracy. Responsible to the governor, town councils known as Cabildo administered local municipalities, the most important of which was Santiago, which was the seat of a Royal Appeals Court (Real Audiencia) from 1609 until the end of colonial rule.

Chile was the least wealthy realm of the Spanish Crown for most of its colonial history. Only in the 18th century did a steady economic and demographic growth begin, an effect of the reforms by Spain's Bourbon dynasty and a more stable situation along the frontier.

Independence (1810–1818)
The drive for independence from Spain was precipitated by the usurpation of the Spanish throne by Napoleon's brother Joseph Bonaparte. The Chilean War of Independence was part of the larger Spanish American independence movement, and it was far from having unanimous support among Chileans, who became divided between independentists and royalists. What started as an elitist political movement against their colonial master, finally ended as a full-fledged civil war between pro-Independence Criollos who sought political and economic independence from Spain and royalist Criollos, who supported the continued allegiance to and permanence within the Spanish Empire of the Captaincy General of Chile. The struggle for independence was a war within the upper class, although the majority of troops on both sides consisted of conscripted mestizos and Native Americans.

The beginning of the Independence movement is traditionally dated as of September 18, 1810, when a national junta was established to govern Chile in the name of the deposed king Ferdinand VII. Depending on what terms one uses to define the end, the movement extended until 1821 (when the Spanish were expelled from mainland Chile) or 1826 (when the last Spanish troops surrendered and Chiloé was incorporated into the Chilean republic). The independence process is normally divided into three stages: Patria Vieja, Reconquista, and Patria Nueva.

Chile's first experiment with self-government, the "Patria Vieja" (old fatherland, 1810–1814), was led by José Miguel Carrera, an aristocrat then in his mid-twenties. The military-educated Carrera was a heavy-handed ruler who aroused widespread opposition. Another of the earliest advocates of full independence, Bernardo O'Higgins, captained a rival faction that plunged the Criollos into civil war. For him and certain other members of the Chilean elite, the initiative for temporary self-rule quickly escalated into a campaign for permanent independence, although other Criollos remained loyal to Spain.

Among those favouring independence, conservatives fought with liberals over the degree to which French revolutionary ideas would be incorporated into the movement. After several efforts, Spanish troops from Peru took advantage of the internecine strife to reconquer Chile in 1814, when they reasserted control by the Battle of Rancagua on October 12. O'Higgins, Carrera and many of the Chilean rebels escaped to Argentina.

The second period was characterized by the Spanish attempts to reimpose arbitrary rule during the period known as the Reconquista of 1814–1817 ("Reconquest": the term echoes the Reconquista in which the Christian kingdoms retook Iberia from the Muslims). During this period, the harsh rule of the Spanish loyalists, who punished suspected rebels, drove more and more Chileans into the insurrectionary camp. More members of the Chilean elite were becoming convinced of the necessity of full independence, regardless of who sat on the throne of Spain. As the leader of guerrilla raids against the Spaniards, Manuel Rodríguez became a national symbol of resistance.

In exile in Argentina, O'Higgins joined forces with José de San Martín. Their combined army freed Chile with a daring assault over the Andes in 1817, defeating the Spaniards at the Battle of Chacabuco on February 12 and marking the beginning of the Patria Nueva. San Martín considered the liberation of Chile a strategic stepping-stone to the emancipation of Peru, which he saw as the key to hemispheric victory over the Spanish.

Chile won its formal independence when San Martín defeated the last large Spanish force on Chilean soil at the Battle of Maipú on April 5, 1818. San Martín then led his Argentine and Chilean followers north to liberate Peru; and fighting continued in Chile's southern provinces, the bastion of the royalists, until 1826.

A declaration of independence was officially issued by Chile on February 12, 1818, and formally recognized by Spain in 1840, when full diplomatic relations were established.

Constitutional organization (1818–1833)
From 1817 to 1823, Bernardo O'Higgins ruled Chile as supreme director. He won plaudits for defeating royalists and founding schools, but civil strife continued. O'Higgins alienated liberals and provincials with his authoritarianism, conservatives and the church with his anticlericalism, and landowners with his proposed reforms of the land tenure system. His attempt to devise a constitution in 1818 that would legitimize his government failed, as did his effort to generate stable funding for the new administration. O'Higgins's dictatorial behavior aroused resistance in the provinces. This growing discontent was reflected in the continuing opposition of partisans of Carrera, who was executed by the Argentine regime in Mendoza in 1821, as were his two brothers three years earlier.

Although opposed by many liberals, O'Higgins angered the Roman Catholic Church with his liberal beliefs. He maintained Catholicism's status as the official state religion but tried to curb the church's political powers and to encourage religious tolerance as a means of attracting Protestant immigrants and traders. Like the church, the landed aristocracy felt threatened by O'Higgins, resenting his attempts to eliminate noble titles and, more important, to eliminate entailed estates.

O'Higgins's opponents also disapproved of his diversion of Chilean resources to aid San Martín's liberation of Peru. O'Higgins insisted on supporting that campaign because he realized that Chilean independence would not be secure until the Spaniards were routed from the Andean core of the empire. However, amid mounting discontent, troops from the northern and southern provinces forced O'Higgins to resign. Embittered, O'Higgins departed for Peru, where he died in 1842.

After O'Higgins went into exile in 1823, civil conflict continued, focusing mainly on the issues of anticlericalism and regionalism. Presidents and constitutions rose and fell quickly in the 1820s. The civil struggle's harmful effects on the economy, and particularly on exports, prompted conservatives to seize national control in 1830.

In the minds of most members of the Chilean elite, the bloodshed and chaos of the late 1820s were attributable to the shortcomings of liberalism and federalism, which had been dominant over conservatism for most of the period. The political camp became divided by supporters of O'Higgins, Carrera, liberal Pipiolos and conservative Pelucones, being the two last the main movements that prevailed and absorbed the rest. The abolition of slavery in 1823—long before most other countries in the Americas—was considered one of the Pipiolos' few lasting achievements. One Pipiolo leader from the south, Ramón Freire, rode in and out of the presidency several times (1823–1827, 1828, 1829, 1830) but could not sustain his authority. From May 1827 to September 1831, with the exception of brief interventions by Freire, the presidency was occupied by Francisco Antonio Pinto, Freire's former vice president.

In August 1828, Pinto's first year in office, Chile abandoned its short-lived federalist system for a unitary form of government, with separate legislative, executive, and judicial branches. By adopting a moderately liberal constitution in 1828, Pinto alienated both the federalists and the liberal factions. He also angered the old aristocracy by abolishing estates inherited by primogeniture (mayorazgo) and caused a public uproar with his anticlericalism. After the defeat of his liberal army at the Battle of Lircay on April 17, 1830, Freire, like O'Higgins, went into exile in Peru.

Conservative Era (1830–1861)
Although never president, Diego Portales dominated Chilean politics from the cabinet and behind the scenes from 1830 to 1837. He installed the "autocratic republic", which centralized authority in the national government. His political program enjoyed support from merchants, large landowners, foreign capitalists, the church, and the military. Political and economic stability reinforced each other, as Portales encouraged economic growth through free trade and put government finances in order. Portales was an agnostic who said that he believed in the clergy but not in God. He realized the importance of the Roman Catholic Church as a bastion of loyalty, legitimacy, social control and stability, as had been the case in the colonial period. He repealed Liberal reforms that had threatened church privileges and properties.

The "Portalian State" was institutionalized by the Chilean Constitution of 1833. One of the most durable charters ever devised in Latin America, the Portalian constitution lasted until 1925. The constitution concentrated authority in the national government, more precisely, in the hands of the president, who was elected by a tiny minority. The chief executive could serve two consecutive five-year terms and then pick a successor. Although the Congress had significant budgetary powers, it was overshadowed by the president, who appointed provincial officials. The constitution also created an independent judiciary, guaranteed inheritance of estates by primogeniture, and installed Catholicism as the state religion. In short, it established an autocratic system under a republican veneer.

Portales also achieved his objectives by wielding dictatorial powers, censoring the press, and manipulating elections. For the next forty years, Chile's armed forces would be distracted from meddling in politics by skirmishes and defensive operations on the southern frontier, although some units got embroiled in domestic conflicts in 1851 and 1859.

The Portalian president was General Joaquín Prieto, who served two terms (1831–1836, 1836–1841). President Prieto had four main accomplishments: implementation of the 1833 constitution, stabilization of government finances, defeat of provincial challenges to central authority, and victory over the Peru-Bolivia Confederation. During the presidencies of Prieto and his two successors, Chile modernized through the construction of ports, railroads, and telegraph lines, some built by United States entrepreneur William Wheelwright. These innovations facilitated the export-import trade as well as domestic commerce.

Prieto and his adviser, Portales, feared the efforts of Bolivian general Andrés de Santa Cruz to unite with Peru against Chile. These qualms exacerbated animosities toward Peru dating from the colonial period, now intensified by disputes over customs duties and loans. Chile also wanted to become the dominant South American military and commercial power along the Pacific. Santa Cruz united Peru and Bolivia in the Peru–Bolivian Confederation in 1836 with a desire to expand control over Argentina and Chile. Portales got Congress to declare war on the Confederation. Portales was killed by traitors in 1837. The general Manuel Bulnes defeated the Confederation in the Battle of Yungay in 1839.

After his success Bulnes was elected president in 1841. He served two terms (1841–1846, 1846–1851). His administration concentrated on the occupation of the territory, especially the Strait of Magellan and the Araucanía. The Venezuelan Andres Bello made important intellectual advances in this period, most notably the creation of the University of Santiago. But political tensions, including a liberal rebellion, led to the Chilean Civil War of 1851. In the end the conservatives defeated the liberals.

The last conservative president was Manuel Montt, who also served two terms (1851–1856, 1856–1861), but his poor administration led to the liberal rebellion in 1859. Liberals triumphed in 1861 with the election of Jose Joaquin Perez as president.

Liberal era (1861–1891)
The political revolt brought little social change, however, and 19th century Chilean society preserved the essence of the stratified colonial social structure, which was greatly influenced by family politics and the Roman Catholic Church. A strong presidency eventually emerged, but wealthy landowners remained powerful.

Toward the end of the 19th century, the government in Santiago consolidated its position in the south by persistently suppressing the Mapuche during the Occupation of the Araucanía. In 1881, it signed the Boundary Treaty of 1881 between Chile and Argentina confirming Chilean sovereignty over the Strait of Magellan, but conceding all of oriental Patagonia, and a considerable fraction of the territory it had during colonial times. As a result of the War of the Pacific with Peru and Bolivia (1879–1883), Chile expanded its territory northward by almost one-third and acquired valuable nitrate deposits, the exploitation of which led to an era of national affluence.

In the 1870s, the church influence started to diminish slightly with the passing of several laws that took some old roles of the church into the State's hands such as the registry of births and marriages.

In 1886, José Manuel Balmaceda was elected president. His economic policies visibly changed the existing liberal policies. He began to violate the constitution and slowly began to establish a dictatorship. Congress decided to depose Balmaceda, who refused to step down. Jorge Montt, among others, directed an armed conflict against Balmaceda, which soon extended into the 1891 Chilean Civil War. Defeated, Balmaceda fled to Argentina's embassy, where he committed suicide. Jorge Montt became the new president.

Parliamentary era (1891–1925)
The so-called Parliamentary Republic was not a true parliamentary system, in which the chief executive is elected by the legislature. It was, however, an unusual regime in presidentialist Latin America, for Congress really did overshadow the rather ceremonial office of the president and exerted authority over the chief executive's cabinet appointees. In turn, Congress was dominated by the landed elites. This was the heyday of classic political and economic liberalism.

For many decades thereafter, historians derided the Parliamentary Republic as a quarrel-prone system that merely distributed spoils and clung to its laissez-faire policy while national problems mounted. The characterization is epitomized by an observation made by President Ramón Barros Luco (1910–1915), reputedly made in reference to labor unrest: "There are only two kinds of problems: those that solve themselves and those that can't be solved."

At the mercy of Congress, cabinets came and went frequently, although there was more stability and continuity in public administration than some historians have suggested. Chile also temporarily resolved its border disputes with Argentina with the Puna de Atacama Lawsuit of 1899, the Boundary treaty of 1881 between Chile and Argentina and the 1902 General Treaty of Arbitration, though not without engaging in an expensive naval arms race beforehand.

Political authority ran from local electoral bosses in the provinces through the congressional and executive branches, which reciprocated with payoffs from taxes on nitrate sales. Congressmen often won election by bribing voters in this clientelistic and corrupt system. Many politicians relied on intimidated or loyal peasant voters in the countryside, even though the population was becoming increasingly urban. The lackluster presidents and ineffectual administrations of the period did little to respond to the country's dependence on volatile nitrate exports, spiraling inflation, and massive urbanization.

However, particularly when the authoritarian regime of Augusto Pinochet is taken into consideration, some scholars have in recent years reevaluated the Parliamentary Republic of 1891–1925. Without denying its shortcomings, they have lauded its democratic stability. They have also hailed its control of the armed forces, its respect for civil liberties, its expansion of suffrage and participation, and its gradual admission of new contenders, especially reformers, to the political arena. In particular, two young parties grew in importance – the Democrat Party, with roots among artisans and urban workers, and the Radical Party, representing urban middle sectors and provincial elites.

By the early 20th century, both parties were winning increasing numbers of seats in Congress. The more leftist members of the Democrat Party became involved in the leadership of labor unions and broke off to launch the Socialist Workers' Party (Partido Obrero Socialista – POS) in 1912. The founder of the POS and its best-known leader, Luis Emilio Recabarren, also founded the Communist Party of Chile (Partido Comunista de Chile – PCCh) in 1922.

Presidential era (1925–1973)
By the 1920s, the emerging middle and working classes were powerful enough to elect a reformist president, Arturo Alessandri Palma. Alessandri appealed to those who believed the social question should be addressed, to those worried by the decline in nitrate exports during World War I, and to those weary of presidents dominated by Congress. Promising "evolution to avoid revolution", he pioneered a new campaign style of appealing directly to the masses with florid oratory and charisma. After winning a seat in the Senate representing the mining north in 1915, he earned the sobriquet "Lion of Tarapacá."

As a dissident Liberal running for the presidency, Alessandri attracted support from the more reformist Radicals and Democrats and formed the so-called Liberal Alliance. He received strong backing from the middle and working classes as well as from the provincial elites. Students and intellectuals also rallied to his banner. At the same time, he reassured the landowners that social reforms would be limited to the cities.

Alessandri soon discovered that his efforts to lead would be blocked by the conservative Congress. Like Balmaceda, he infuriated the legislators by going over their heads to appeal to the voters in the congressional elections of 1924. His reform legislation was finally rammed through Congress under pressure from younger military officers, who were sick of the neglect of the armed forces, political infighting, social unrest, and galloping inflation, whose program was frustrated by a conservative congress.

A double military coup set off a period of great political instability that lasted until 1932. First military right-wingers opposing Alessandri seized power in September 1924, and then reformers in favor of the ousted president took charge in January 1925. The Saber noise (ruido de sables) incident of September 1924, provoked by discontent of young officers, mostly lieutenants from middle and working classes, lead to the establishment of the September Junta led by General Luis Altamirano and the exile of Alessandri.

However, fears of a conservative restoration in progressive sectors of the army led to another coup in January, which ended with the establishment of the January Junta as interim government while waiting for Alessandri's return. The latter group was led by two colonels, Carlos Ibáñez del Campo and Marmaduke Grove. They returned Alessandri to the presidency that March and enacted his promised reforms by decree. The latter re-assumed power in March, and a new Constitution encapsulating his proposed reforms was ratified in a plebiscite in September 1925.

The new constitution gave increased powers to the presidency. Alessandri broke with the classical liberalism's policies of laissez-faire by creating a Central Bank and imposing a revenue tax. However, social discontents were also crushed, leading to the Marusia massacre in March 1925 followed by the La Coruña massacre.

The longest lasting of the ten governments between 1924 and 1932 was that of General Carlos Ibáñez, who briefly held power in 1925 and then again between 1927 and 1931 in what was a de facto dictatorship. When constitutional rule was restored in 1932, a strong middle-class party, the Radicals, emerged. It became the key force in coalition governments for the next 20 years.

The Seguro Obrero Massacre took place on September 5, 1938, in the midst of a heated three-way election campaign between the ultraconservative Gustavo Ross Santa María, the radical Popular Front's Pedro Aguirre Cerda, and the newly formed Popular Alliance candidate, Carlos Ibáñez del Campo. The National Socialist Movement of Chile supported Ibáñez's candidacy, which had been announced on September 4. In order to preempt Ross's victory, the National Socialists mounted a coup d'état that was intended to take down the rightwing government of Arturo Alessandri Palma and place Ibáñez in power.

During the period of Radical Party dominance (1932–1952), the state increased its role in the economy. In 1952, voters returned Ibáñez to office for another 6 years. Jorge Alessandri succeeded Ibáñez in 1958.

The 1964 presidential election of Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei Montalva by an absolute majority initiated a period of major reform. Under the slogan "Revolution in Liberty", the Frei administration embarked on far-reaching social and economic programs, particularly in education, housing, and agrarian reform, including rural unionization of agricultural workers. By 1967, however, Frei encountered increasing opposition from leftists, who charged that his reforms were inadequate, and from conservatives, who found them excessive. At the end of his term, Frei had accomplished many noteworthy objectives, but he had not fully achieved his party's ambitious goals.

Popular Unity years
In the 1970 presidential election, Senator Salvador Allende Gossens won a plurality of votes in a three-way contest. He was a Marxist physician and member of Chile's Socialist Party, who headed the "Popular Unity" (UP or "Unidad Popular") coalition of the Socialist, Communist, Radical, and Social-Democratic Parties, along with dissident Christian Democrats, the Popular Unitary Action Movement (MAPU), and the Independent Popular Action.

Allende had two main competitors in the election — Radomiro Tomic, representing the incumbent Christian Democratic party, who ran a left-wing campaign with much the same theme as Allende's, and the right-wing former president Jorge Alessandri. In the end, Allende received a plurality of the votes cast, getting 36% of the vote against Alessandri's 35% and Tomic's 28%.

Despite pressure from the government of the United States, the Chilean Congress, keeping with tradition, conducted a runoff vote between the leading candidates, Allende and former president Jorge Alessandri. This procedure had previously been a near-formality, yet became quite fraught in 1970. After assurances of legality on Allende's part, the murder of the Army Commander-in-Chief, General René Schneider and Frei's refusal to form an alliance with Alessandri to oppose Allende – on the grounds that the Christian Democrats were a workers' party and could not make common cause with the oligarchs – Allende was chosen by a vote of 153 to 35.

The Popular Unity platform included the nationalization of U.S. interests in Chile's major copper mines, the advancement of workers' rights, deepening of the Chilean land reform, reorganization of the national economy into socialized, mixed, and private sectors, a foreign policy of "international solidarity" and national independence and a new institutional order (the "people's state" or "poder popular"), including the institution of a unicameral congress. Immediately after the election, the United States expressed its disapproval and raised a number of economic sanctions against Chile.

In addition, the CIA's website reports that the agency aided three different Chilean opposition groups during that time period and "sought to instigate a coup to prevent Allende from taking office". The action plans to prevent Allende from coming to power were known as Track I and Track II.

In the first year of Allende's term, the short-term economic results of Economics Minister Pedro Vuskovic's expansive monetary policy were unambiguously favorable: 12% industrial growth and an 8.6% increase in GDP, accompanied by major declines in inflation (down from 34.9% to 22.1%) and unemployment (down to 3.8%). Allende adopted measures including price freezes, wage increases, and tax reforms, which had the effect of increasing consumer spending and redistributing income downward. Joint public-private public works projects helped reduce unemployment. Much of the banking sector was nationalized. Many enterprises within the copper, coal, iron, nitrate, and steel industries were expropriated, nationalized, or subjected to state intervention. Industrial output increased sharply and unemployment fell during the administration's first year. However, these results were not sustainable and in 1972 the Chilean escudo had runaway inflation of 140%. An economic depression that had begun in 1967 peaked in 1972, exacerbated by capital flight, plummeting private investment, and withdrawal of bank deposits in response to Allende's socialist program. Production fell and unemployment rose. The combination of inflation and government-mandated price-fixing led to the rise of black markets in rice, beans, sugar, and flour, and a "disappearance" of such basic commodities from supermarket shelves.

Recognizing that U.S. intelligence forces were trying to destabilize his presidency through a variety of methods, the KGB offered financial assistance to the first democratically elected Marxist president. However, the reason behind the U.S. covert actions against Allende concerned not the spread of Marxism but fear over losing control of its investments. "By 1968, 20 percent of total U.S. foreign investment was tied up in Latin America...Mining companies had invested $1 billion over the previous fifty years in Chile's copper mining industry – the largest in the world – but they had sent $7.2 billion home." Part of the CIA's program involved a propaganda campaign that portrayed Allende as a would-be Soviet dictator. In fact, however, "the U.S.'s own intelligence reports showed that Allende posed no threat to democracy." Nevertheless, the Richard Nixon administration organized and inserted secret operatives in Chile, in order to quickly destabilize Allende's government.

In addition, Nixon gave instructions to make the Chilean economy scream, and international financial pressure restricted economic credit to Chile. Simultaneously, the CIA funded opposition media, politicians, and organizations, helping to accelerate a campaign of domestic destabilization. By 1972, the economic progress of Allende's first year had been reversed, and the economy was in crisis. Political polarization increased, and large mobilizations of both pro- and anti-government groups became frequent, often leading to clashes.

By 1973, Chilean society had grown highly polarized, between strong opponents and equally strong supporters of Salvador Allende and his government. Military actions and movements, separate from the civilian authority, began to manifest in the countryside. The Tanquetazo was a failed military coup d'état attempted against Allende in June 1973.

In its "Agreement", on August 22, 1973, the Chamber of Deputies of Chile asserted that Chilean democracy had broken down and called for "redirecting government activity", to restore constitutional rule. Less than a month later, on September 11, 1973, the Chilean military deposed Allende, who shot himself in the head to avoid capture as the Presidential Palace was surrounded and bombed. Subsequently, rather than restore governmental authority to the civilian legislature, Augusto Pinochet exploited his role as Commander of the Army to seize total power and to establish himself at the head of a junta.

CIA involvement in the coup is documented. As early as the Church Committee Report (1975), publicly available documents have indicated that the CIA attempted to prevent Allende from taking office after he was elected in 1970; the CIA itself released documents in 2000 acknowledging this and that Pinochet was one of their favored alternatives to take power.

According to the Vasili Mitrokhin and Christopher Andrew, the KGB and the Cuban Intelligence Directorate launched a campaign known as Operation TOUCAN. For instance, in 1976, the New York Times published 66 articles on human rights abuses in Chile and only 4 on Cambodia, where the communist Khmer Rouge killed some 1.5 million people of 7.5 million people in the country.

Military dictatorship (1973–1990)
By early 1973, inflation had risen 600% under Allende's presidency.  The crippled economy was further battered by prolonged and sometimes simultaneous strikes by physicians, teachers, students, truck owners, copper workers, and the small business class. A military coup overthrew Allende on September 11, 1973. As the armed forces bombarded the presidential palace (Palacio de La Moneda), Allende committed suicide. A military government, led by General Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, took over control of the country.

The first years of the regime were marked by human rights violations. The junta jailed, tortured, and executed thousands of Chileans. In October 1973, at least 72 people were murdered by the Caravan of Death. At least a thousand people were executed during the first six months of Pinochet in office, and at least two thousand more were killed during the next sixteen years, as reported by the Rettig Report. At least 29,000 were imprisoned and tortured. According to the Latin American Institute on Mental Health and Human Rights (ILAS), "situations of extreme trauma" affected about 200,000 persons.; this figure includes individuals killed, tortured or exiled, and their immediate families. About 30,000 left the country.

The four-man junta headed by General Augusto Pinochet abolished civil liberties, dissolved the national congress, banned union activities, prohibited strikes and collective bargaining, and erased the Allende administration's agrarian and economic reforms.

The junta embarked on a radical program of liberalization, deregulation and privatization, slashing tariffs as well as government welfare programs and deficits. Economic reforms were drafted by a group of technocrats who became known as the Chicago Boys because many of them had been trained or influenced by University of Chicago professors. Under these new policies, the rate of inflation dropped:

A new constitution was approved by plebiscite characterized by the absence of registration lists, on September 11, 1980, and General Pinochet became president of the republic for an 8-year term.

In 1982–1983 Chile witnessed a severe economic crisis with a surge in unemployment and a meltdown of the financial sector. 16 out of 50 financial institutions faced bankruptcy. In 1982 the two biggest banks were nationalized to prevent an even worse credit crunch. In 1983 another five banks were nationalized and two banks had to be put under government supervision. The central bank took over foreign debts. Critics ridiculed the economic policy of the Chicago Boys as "Chicago way to socialism“.

After the economic crisis, Hernán Büchi became Minister of Finance from 1985 to 1989, introducing a more pragmatic economic policy. He allowed the peso to float and reinstated restrictions on the movement of capital in and out of the country. He introduced Bank regulations, simplified and reduced the corporate tax. Chile went ahead with privatizations, including public utilities plus the re-privatization of companies that had returned to the government during the 1982–1983 crisis. From 1984 to 1990, Chile's gross domestic product grew by an annual average of 5.9%, the fastest on the continent. Chile developed a good export economy, including the export of fruits and vegetables to the northern hemisphere when they were out of season, and commanded high prices.

The military junta began to change during the late 1970s. Due to problems with Pinochet, Leigh was expelled from the junta in 1978 and replaced by General Fernando Matthei. In the late 1980s, the government gradually permitted greater freedom of assembly, speech, and association, to include trade union and political activity. Due to the Caso Degollados ("slit throats case"), in which three Communist party members were assassinated, César Mendoza, member of the junta since 1973 and representants of the carabineros, resigned in 1985 and was replaced by Rodolfo Stange. The next year, Carmen Gloria Quintana was burnt alive in what became known as the Caso Quemado ("Burnt Alive case").

Chile's constitution established that in 1988 there would be another plebiscite in which the voters would accept or reject a single candidate proposed by the Military Junta. Pinochet was, as expected, the candidate proposed, but was denied a second 8-year term by 54.5% of the vote.

Aylwin, Frei, and Lagos
Chileans elected a new president and the majority of members of a two-chamber congress on December 14, 1989. Christian Democrat Patricio Aylwin, the candidate of a coalition of 17 political parties called the Concertación, received an absolute majority of votes (55%). President Aylwin served from 1990 to 1994, in what was considered a transition period. In February 1991 Aylwin created the National Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, which released in February 1991 the Rettig Report on human rights violations committed during the military rule.

This report counted 2,279 cases of "disappearances" which could be proved and registered. Of course, the very nature of "disappearances" made such investigations very difficult. The same problem arose, several years later, with the Valech Report, released in 2004 and which counted almost 30,000 victims of torture, among testimonies from 35,000 persons.

In December 1993, Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle, the son of previous president Eduardo Frei Montalva, led the Concertación coalition to victory with an absolute majority of votes (58%). Frei Ruiz-Tagle was succeeded in 2000 by Socialist Ricardo Lagos, who won the presidency in an unprecedented runoff election against Joaquín Lavín of the rightist Alliance for Chile, by a very tight score of fewer than 200,000 votes (51,32%).

In 1998, Pinochet travelled to London for back surgery. But under orders of Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón, he was arrested there, attracting worldwide attention, not only because of the history of Chile and South America, but also because this was one of the first arrests of a former president based on the universal jurisdiction principle. Pinochet tried to defend himself by referring to the State Immunity Act of 1978, an argument rejected by the British justice. However, UK Home Secretary Jack Straw took the responsibility to release him on medical grounds, and refused to extradite him to Spain. Thereafter, Pinochet returned to Chile in March 2000. Upon descending the plane on his wheelchair, he stood up and saluted the cheering crowd of supporters, including an army band playing his favorite military march tunes, which was awaiting him at the airport in Santiago. President Ricardo Lagos later commented that the retired general's televised arrival had damaged the image of Chile, while thousands demonstrated against him.

Bachelet and Piñera
The Concertación coalition has continued to dominate Chilean politics for last two decades. In January 2006 Chileans elected their first female president, Michelle Bachelet, of the Socialist Party. She was sworn in on March 11, 2006, extending the Concertación coalition governance for another four years.

In 2002 Chile signed an association agreement with the European Union (comprising a free trade agreement and political and cultural agreements), in 2003, an extensive free trade agreement with the United States, and in 2004 with South Korea, expecting a boom in import and export of local produce and becoming a regional trade-hub. Continuing the coalition's free trade strategy, in August 2006 President Bachelet promulgated a free trade agreement with China (signed under the previous administration of Ricardo Lagos), the first Chinese free trade agreement with a Latin American nation; similar deals with Japan and India were promulgated in August 2007. In October 2006, Bachelet promulgated a multilateral trade deal with New Zealand, Singapore and Brunei, the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (P4), also signed under Lagos' presidency. Regionally, she has signed bilateral free trade agreements with Panama, Peru and Colombia.

After 20 years, Chile went in a new direction with the win of center-right Sebastián Piñera, in the Chilean presidential election of 2009–2010, defeating former President Eduardo Frei in the runoff.

On 27 February 2010, Chile was struck by an 8.8 MW earthquake, the fifth largest ever recorded at the time. More than 500 people died (most from the ensuing tsunami) and over a million people lost their homes. The earthquake was also followed by multiple aftershocks. Initial damage estimates were in the range of US$15–30 billion, around 10 to 15 percent of Chile's real gross domestic product.

Chile achieved global recognition for the successful rescue of 33 trapped miners in 2010. On 5 August 2010, the access tunnel collapsed at the San José copper and gold mine in the Atacama Desert near Copiapó in northern Chile, trapping 33 men 700 m below ground. A rescue effort organized by the Chilean government located the miners 17 days later. All 33 men were brought to the surface two months later on 13 October 2010 over a period of almost 24 hours, an effort that was carried on live television around the world.

Despite good macroeconomic indicators, there was increased social dissatisfaction, focused on demands for better and fairer education, culminating in  massive protests demanding more democratic and equitable institutions. Approval of Piñera's administration fell irrevocably.

In 2013, Bachelet, a Social Democrat, was elected again as president, seeking to make the structural changes claimed in recent years by the society relative to education reform, tributary reform, same sex civil union, and definitely end the Binomial System, looking to further equality and the end of what remains of the dictatorship. In 2015 a series of corruption scandals (most notably Penta case and Caval case) became public, threatening the credibility of the political and business class.

On 17 December 2017, Sebastián Piñera was elected president of Chile for a second term. He received 36% of the votes, the highest percentage among all 8 candidates. In the second round, Piñera faced Alejandro Guillier, a television news anchor who represented Bachelet's New Majority (Nueva Mayoría) coalition. Piñera won the elections with 54% of the votes.

Estallido Social and Constitutional Referendum
In October 2019 there were violent protests about costs of living and inequality, resulting in Piñera declaring a state of emergency. On 15 November, most of the political parties represented in the National Congress signed an agreement to call a national referendum in April 2020 regarding the creation of a new Constitution. But the COVID-19 pandemic postponed the date of the elections, while Chile was one of the hardest hit nations in the Americas as of May 2020. On October 25, 2020, Chileans voted 78.28 per cent in favor of a new constitution, while 21.72 per cent rejected the change. Voter turnout was 51 per cent. A second vote was held on April 11, 2021, to select 155 Chileans who form the convention which will draft the new constitution.

On 19 December 2021, leftist candidate, the 35-year-old former student protest leader, Gabriel Boric, won Chile's presidential election to become the country's youngest ever leader, after the most polarizing election since democracy was restored, defeating right wing pinochetist and leader of the Chilean Republican Party José Antonio Kast. The center-left and center-right political conglomerates alternating power during the last 32 years (ex-Concertación and Chile Vamos) ended up in fourth and fifth place of the presidential election.

Gabriel Boric presidency (2022- )
On 11 March 2022, Gabriel Boric was sworn in as president to succeed outgoing President Sebastian Pinera. Out of 24 members of Gabriel Boric's female-majority Cabinet, 14 are women.

On 4 September 2022, voters rejected overwhelmingly the new constitution in the constitutional referendum, which was put forward by the constitutional convention and strongly backed by President Boric. Prior to the dismissal of the proposed constitution the issue of constitutional plurinationalism was noted in polls as particularly divisive in Chile. In May 2023, the far-right Republican Party became first in Chilean Constitutional Council election.The Republican party won 22 out of the 51 seats, with right-wing parties winning another 11 seats, in the assembly tasked with drawing up Chile's new constitution.

In English

 * (See pp. 153–160.)
 * Antezana-Pernet, Corinne. "Peace in the World and Democracy at Home: The Chilean Women's Movement in the 1940s" in Latin America in the 1940s, David Rock, ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press 1994, pp. 166–186.
 * Bergquist, Charles W. Labor in Latin America: Comparative Essays on Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, and Colombia. Stanford: Stanford University Press 1986.
 * Burr, Robert N. By Reason or Force: Chile and the Balancing Power of South America 1830–1905. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press 1965.
 * Collier, Simon. Ideas and Politics of Chilean Independence, 1808–1833. New York: Cambridge University Press 1967.
 * Drake, Paul. Socialism and Populism in Chile, 1932–1952. Urbana: University of Illinois Press 1978.
 * Drake, Paul. "International Crises and Popular Movements in Latin America: Chile and Peru from the Great Depression to the Cold War," in Latin America in the 1940s, David Rock, ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press 1994, 109–140.
 * Harvey, Robert. "Liberators: Latin America`s Struggle For Independence, 1810–1830". John Murray, London (2000). ISBN 0-7195-5566-3
 * Klubock, Thomas. La Frontera: Forests and Ecological Conflict in Chile's Frontier Territory. Durham: Duke University Press 2014.
 * Mallon, Florencia. Courage Tastes of Blood: The Mapuche Community of Nicolás Ailío and the Chilean State, 1906–2001. Durham: Duke University Press 2005.
 * Pike, Frederick B. Chile and the United States, 1880–1962: The Emergence of Chile's Social Crisis and challenge to United States Diplomacy. University of Notre Dame Press 1963.
 * Stern, Steve J. Battling for Hearts and Minds: Memory Struggles in Pinochet's Chile, 1973–1988. Durham: Duke University Press 2006.
 * Harvey, Robert. "Liberators: Latin America`s Struggle For Independence, 1810–1830". John Murray, London (2000). ISBN 0-7195-5566-3
 * Klubock, Thomas. La Frontera: Forests and Ecological Conflict in Chile's Frontier Territory. Durham: Duke University Press 2014.
 * Mallon, Florencia. Courage Tastes of Blood: The Mapuche Community of Nicolás Ailío and the Chilean State, 1906–2001. Durham: Duke University Press 2005.
 * Pike, Frederick B. Chile and the United States, 1880–1962: The Emergence of Chile's Social Crisis and challenge to United States Diplomacy. University of Notre Dame Press 1963.
 * Stern, Steve J. Battling for Hearts and Minds: Memory Struggles in Pinochet's Chile, 1973–1988. Durham: Duke University Press 2006.
 * Mallon, Florencia. Courage Tastes of Blood: The Mapuche Community of Nicolás Ailío and the Chilean State, 1906–2001. Durham: Duke University Press 2005.
 * Pike, Frederick B. Chile and the United States, 1880–1962: The Emergence of Chile's Social Crisis and challenge to United States Diplomacy. University of Notre Dame Press 1963.
 * Stern, Steve J. Battling for Hearts and Minds: Memory Struggles in Pinochet's Chile, 1973–1988. Durham: Duke University Press 2006.
 * Stern, Steve J. Battling for Hearts and Minds: Memory Struggles in Pinochet's Chile, 1973–1988. Durham: Duke University Press 2006.
 * Stern, Steve J. Battling for Hearts and Minds: Memory Struggles in Pinochet's Chile, 1973–1988. Durham: Duke University Press 2006.
 * Stern, Steve J. Battling for Hearts and Minds: Memory Struggles in Pinochet's Chile, 1973–1988. Durham: Duke University Press 2006.

In Spanish

 * Cronología de Chile in the Spanish-language Wikipedia.
 * Díaz, J.; Lüders. R. y Wagner, G. (2016). Chile 1810–2010. La República en Cifras. Historical Statistics. (Santiago: Ediciones Universidad Católica de Chile); a compendium of indicators, from macroeconomic aggregates to demographic trends and social policies, focused on economic and social history; more information; Data can be obtained from: online
 * Cronología de Chile in the Spanish-language Wikipedia.
 * Díaz, J.; Lüders. R. y Wagner, G. (2016). Chile 1810–2010. La República en Cifras. Historical Statistics. (Santiago: Ediciones Universidad Católica de Chile); a compendium of indicators, from macroeconomic aggregates to demographic trends and social policies, focused on economic and social history; more information; Data can be obtained from: online
 * Cronología de Chile in the Spanish-language Wikipedia.
 * Díaz, J.; Lüders. R. y Wagner, G. (2016). Chile 1810–2010. La República en Cifras. Historical Statistics. (Santiago: Ediciones Universidad Católica de Chile); a compendium of indicators, from macroeconomic aggregates to demographic trends and social policies, focused on economic and social history; more information; Data can be obtained from: online
 * Cronología de Chile in the Spanish-language Wikipedia.
 * Díaz, J.; Lüders. R. y Wagner, G. (2016). Chile 1810–2010. La República en Cifras. Historical Statistics. (Santiago: Ediciones Universidad Católica de Chile); a compendium of indicators, from macroeconomic aggregates to demographic trends and social policies, focused on economic and social history; more information; Data can be obtained from: online
 * Cronología de Chile in the Spanish-language Wikipedia.
 * Díaz, J.; Lüders. R. y Wagner, G. (2016). Chile 1810–2010. La República en Cifras. Historical Statistics. (Santiago: Ediciones Universidad Católica de Chile); a compendium of indicators, from macroeconomic aggregates to demographic trends and social policies, focused on economic and social history; more information; Data can be obtained from: online
 * Díaz, J.; Lüders. R. y Wagner, G. (2016). Chile 1810–2010. La República en Cifras. Historical Statistics. (Santiago: Ediciones Universidad Católica de Chile); a compendium of indicators, from macroeconomic aggregates to demographic trends and social policies, focused on economic and social history; more information; Data can be obtained from: online

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: History of Chile


text:
Politics of Chile

Chile's government is a representative democratic republic, whereby the President of Chile is both head of state and head of government, and of a formal multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the president and by their cabinet. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the two chambers of the National Congress. The judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature of Chile.

The Constitution of Chile was approved in a national plebiscite in September 1980, under the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. It entered into force in March 1981. After Pinochet left power in 1990, saying this country was ready to keep going along with a plebiscite, the Constitution was amended to ease provisions for future amendments to the Constitution.

In September 2006, President Ricardo Lagos signed into law several constitutional amendments passed by Congress. These include eliminating the positions of appointed senators and senators for life, granting the President authority to remove the commanders-in-chief of the armed forces, and reducing the presidential term from six to four years while also disabling immediate re-election.

According to the V-Dem Democracy indices Chile is 2023 the third most electoral democratic country in Latin America.

Statistical analysis suggests Chilean politicians in Congress "are not randomly drawn from the population, but over-represent high-income communities". As such Chileans of Castilian-Basque, Palestinian and Jewish ancestry are overrepresented in it.

History
The autocratic and conservative republic (1831-1861) was replaced by the liberal republic (1861-1891), during which some political conquests were made, such as proportional representation (1871) and the abolition of the condition of ownership to have the right to vote (1885).

Parliamentary Republic
When the era of the parliamentary republic began in 1891, the struggle between liberals (pipiolos) and conservatives (pelucones) had already evolved due to the emergence of a multi-party system. In the 1880s, the Liberals split into two factions: the moderates, who did not want to impose secularism too quickly and were willing to compromise with the Conservatives, and the radical Liberals, who joined the Radical Party founded in 1863 or the new Democratic Party with more progressive, if not socialist, ideas.

European and particularly British companies having appropriated a large part of the country's economy (saltpeter, bank, railroad, trade), President José Balmaceda (1886-1891), leader of moderate liberals, decided to react by directing his policy in two directions: the nationalization of saltpeter mines and the intervention of the State in economic matters. Already facing the conservative aristocracy, he alienated the bankers. He was dismissed by a vote of Parliament and pressure from part of the army. He committed suicide by firearm at the end of the civil war that his supporters lost.

Workers' struggles and social reforms
A new parliamentary regime emerged from the civil war; it was the government of Fronda aristocrática. From 1906 onwards, the Radical Party demanded social reforms and the establishment of a democratic regime. That same year, the leader of the Federation of Workers, Luis Emilio Recabarren, was elected to the House but his election was canceled by the House. In 1912 he founded the Socialist Workers Party.

Despite the country's good economic performance, life remains particularly hard for a large part of the population (12 or 14-hour working days for workers, very low wages, illiteracy of more than 50% in the years 1900–1910, etc.). Trade unionism was organized and fought; strikes and workers' demonstrations multiplied, sometimes very harshly repressed: general strike in Santiago (1905), railroads and mines in Antofagasta (1906), a demonstration in Iquique (1907). From 1911 to 1920, there were 293 strikes. Some repressions kill hundreds of people. The workers' movement was organized in the 1910s with the creation of the Chilean Regional Workers' Federation in 1913 and the Chilean branch of the Industrial Workers of the World in 1919.

In 1920, the economic crisis worsened the standard of living of the middle classes, which were politically closer to the working classes. This new situation led to the election of Arturo Alessandri Palma. During his first term in office, he pursued a progressive policy: labor law, the establishment of the tax on property income, the establishment of the Central Bank, creation of social security funds, etc. However, it must constantly deal with the Senate, always under Conservative control, which systematically tries to block its reforms. Shortly before his withdrawal from power, he drew up a new Constitution that was considered to be the advent of true democracy in Chile. This Constitution enshrines the separation of Church and State and religious freedom, declares compulsory primary education, restores presidentialism by electing the president by universal suffrage, and above all proclaims that property must be regulated in such a way as to ensure its social function.

Legislative branch

The bicameral National Congress (Congreso Nacional) consists of the Senate (Senado) and the Chamber of Deputies (Cámara de Diputados). The Senate is made up of 50 members elected from regions or subregions. Senators serve approximately eight-year terms. The Chamber of Deputies has 155 members, who are elected by popular vote to serve four-year terms. The last congressional elections were held on November 21, 2021.

For parliamentary elections, between 1989 and 2013 the binominal system was used, which promoted the establishment of two majority political blocs -Concertación and Alliance- at the expense of the exclusion of non-majority political groups. The opponents of this system approved in 2015 a moderate proportional electoral system that has been in force since the 2017 parliamentary elections, allowing the entry of new parties and coalitions.

Elections are very labor-intensive but efficient, and vote counting normally takes place the evening of the election day. One voting table, with a ballot-box each, is set up for at-most 200 names in the voting registry. Each table is staffed by five people (vocales de mesa) from the same registry. Vocales have the duty to work as such during a cycle of elections, and can be penalized legally if they do not show up. A registered citizen can only vote after his identity has been verified at the table corresponding to his registry. Ballots are manually counted by the five vocales, after the table has closed, at least eight hours after opening, and the counting witnessed by representatives of all the parties who choose to have observers.

The main existing political coalitions in Chile are:

Government:

 * Apruebo Dignidad (Approve Dignity) is a left-wing coalition that has its origin in the 2021 Chilean Constitutional Convention election. After the success in that election, it held presidential primaries, in which Gabriel Boric (CS, FA) was the winner. It is formed by the coalition Frente Amplio (Broad Font) and the coalition Chile Digno (Worthy Chile) formed by the Communist Party of Chile and others left-wing parties.

 * Democratic Socialism is a center-left coalition, successor of the Constituent Unity, and this of the Concertation -which supported the "NO" option in the 1988 plebiscite and subsequently governed the country from 1990 to 2010-. This pact is formed by the parties Socialist, for Democracy, Radical, and Liberal.

Opposition:

 * Chile Vamos (Let's go Chile) is a center-right coalition with roots of liberal conservatism, formed by the parties Renovación Nacional (National Renewal), Unión Demócrata Independiente (Independent Democratic Union) and Evópoli. It has its origins in the Alliance coalition, formed by the main parties that supported the "YES" option in the 1988 plebiscite, although it has used different names since then. It was the ruling coalition during the first and second government of Sebastián Piñera, (2010-2014) and (2018-2022).

In the National Congress, Chile Vamos has 52 deputies and 24 senators, while the parliamentary group of Apruebo Dignidad is formed by 37 deputies and 6 senators. Democratic Socialism is the third political force with 30 deputies and 13 senators. The other groups with parliamentary representation are the Republican Party (15 deputies and 1 senator), the Christian Democratic Party (8 deputies and 5 senators), the Party of the People (8 deputies), and the independents outside of a coalition (5 deputies and 1 senator).

Since 1987, the Congress operates in the port city of Valparaíso, about 110 km northwest of the capital, Santiago. However some commissions are allowed to meet in other places, especially Santiago. Congressional members have repeatedly tried to relocate the Congress back to Santiago, where it operated until the 1973 Chilean coup d'état, but have not been successful. The last attempt was in 2000, when the project was rejected by the Constitutional Court, because it allocated funds from the national budget, which, under the Chilean Constitution, is a privilege of the President.

Legal system
Chile's legal system is civil law based. It is primarily based on the Civil code of 1855, derived from Spanish law and subsequent codes influenced by European law of the last half of the 19th Century. It does not accept compulsory ICJ jurisdiction.

From the year 2000 onwards, Chile completely overhauled its criminal justice system; a new, US-style adversarial system has been gradually implemented throughout the country with the final stage of implementation in the Santiago metropolitan region completed on June 9, 2001.

Pressure groups
Pressure groups according to the CIA World Factbook:
 * Student federations at all major universities
 * Roman Catholic Church
 * Workers' United Center of Chile trade unionists from Chile's five largest labor confederations.

International organization participation
Chile or Chilean organizations participate in the following international organizations:

title: Politics of Chile


text:
Economy of Chile

The economy of Chile is a market economy and high-income economy as ranked by the World Bank. The country is considered one of South America's most prosperous nations, leading the region in competitiveness, income per capita, globalization, economic freedom, and low perception of corruption. Although Chile has high economic inequality, as measured by the Gini index, it is close to the regional mean. Among OECD nations, Chile has a highly efficient and strong social security system; social welfare expenditure stood at roughly 19.6% of GDP.

In 2006, Chile became the country with the highest nominal GDP per capita in Latin America. In May 2010 Chile became the first South American country to join the OECD. Tax revenues, all together 20.2069% of GDP in 2013, were the second lowest among the 34 OECD countries, and the lowest in 2010. Chile has an inequality-adjusted human development index of 0.704, compared to 0.747, 0.720 and 0.577 for neighboring Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, respectively. In 2017, only 0.7% of the population lived on less than US$1.90 a day.

The Global Competitiveness Report for 2009–2010 ranked Chile as being the 30th most competitive country in the world and the first in Latin America, well above Brazil (56th), Mexico (60th), and Argentina (85th); it has since fallen out of the top 30. The ease of doing business index, created by the World Bank, listed Chile as 34th in the world as of 2014, 41st for 2015, and 48th as of 2016. The privatized national pension system (AFP) has an estimated total domestic savings rate of approximately 21% of GDP. Similarly, in 2023 Chile introduced a temporary basic income program in order to support the families due to economic slowdown in the country through transfer payments, trying to use an expansionary fiscal policy.

History
After Spanish arrival in the 15th century Chilean economy came to revolve around autarchy estates called fundos and around the army that was engaged in the Arauco War. During early colonial times there were gold exports to Peru from placer deposits which soon depleted. Trade restrictions and monopolies established by the Spanish crown are credited for having held back economic development for much of the colonial times. As effect of these restrictions the country incorporated very few new crops and animal breeds after initial conquest. Other sectors that were held back by restrictions were the wine and mining industries. The Bourbon reforms in the 18th century eased many monopolies and trade restrictions.

In the 1830s Chile consolidated under the ideas of Diego Portales as a stable state open to foreign trade. Foreign investment in Chile grew over the 19th century. After the War of the Pacific the Chilean treasury grew by 900%. The League of Nations labeled Chile the country hardest hit by the Great Depression because 80% of government revenue came from exports of copper and nitrates, which were in low demand. After the Great Depression Chilean economic policies changed toward import substitution industrialization and the Production Development Corporation was established.

Under the influence of the Chicago Boys the Pinochet regime made of Chile a leading country in establishing neoliberal policies. These policies allowed large corporations to consolidate their power over the Chilean economy, leading to long-term economic growth. The crisis of 1982 caused the appointment of Hernán Büchi as minister of finance and a sharp revision of economic policy. Despite a general selling of state property and contrary to neoliberal prescriptions, the regime retained the lucrative state owned mining company Codelco which stands for about 30% of government income.

According to the CIA World Factbook, during the early 1990s, Chile's reputation as a role model for economic reform was strengthened when the democratic government of Patricio Aylwin, who took over from the military in 1990, deepened the economic reform initiated by the military government. The Aylwin government departed significantly from the neoliberal doctrine of the Chicago boys, as evidenced by higher government expenditure on social programs to tackle poverty and poor quality housing. Growth in real GDP averaged 8% from 1991 to 1997, but fell to half that level in 1998 because of tight monetary policies (implemented to keep the current account deficit in check) and lower exports due to the Asian financial crisis. Chile's economy has since recovered and has seen growth rates of 5–7% over the past several years.

After a decade of impressive growth rates, Chile began to experience a moderate economic downturn in 1999, brought on by unfavorable global economic conditions related to the Asian financial crisis, which began in 1997. The economy remained sluggish until 2003, when it began to show clear signs of recovery, achieving 4.0% real GDP growth. The Chilean economy finished 2004 with growth of 6.0%. Real GDP growth reached 5.7% in 2005 before falling back to 4.0% in 2006. GDP expanded by 5.1% in 2007.

Sectors
During 2012, the largest sectors by GDP were mining (mainly copper), business services, personal services, manufacturing and wholesale and retail trade. Mining also represented 59.5% of exports in the period, while the manufacturing sector accounted for 34% of exports, concentrated mainly in food products, chemicals and pulp, paper and others.

Agriculture
Chile is one of the 5 largest world producers of cherry and cranberry, and one of the 10 largest world producers of grape, apple, kiwi, peach, plum and hazelnut, focusing on exporting high-value fruits.

In 2018, Chile was the 9th largest producer of grapes in the world, with 2 million tons produced; the 10th largest producer of apples in the world, with 1.7 million tons produced; and the 6th largest producer of kiwi in the world, with 230 thousand tons produced, in addition to producing 1.4 million tons of wheat, 1.1 million tons of maize, 1.1 million tons of potatoes, 951 thousand tons of tomatoes, 571 thousand tons of oats, 368 thousand tons of onions, 319 thousand tons of peaches, 280 thousand tons of pears, 192 thousand tons of rice, 170 thousand tons of barley, 155 thousand tons of cherries, 151 thousand tons of lemons, 118 thousand tons of tangerines, 113 thousand tons of oranges, 110 thousand tons of olives, 106 thousand tons of cranberries, in addition to smaller productions of other agricultural products.

Agriculture and allied sectors like forestry, logging and fishing accounts only for 4.9% of the GDP as of 2007 and employed 13.6% of the country's labor force. Some major agriculture products of Chile includes grapes, apples, pears, onions, wheat, corn, oats, peaches, garlic, asparagus, beans, beef, poultry, wool, fish and timber.

Chile's position in the Southern Hemisphere leads to an agricultural season cycle opposite to those of the principal consumer markets, primarily located in the Northern Hemisphere. Chile's extreme north–south orientation produces seven different macro-regions distinguished by climate and geographical features, which allows the country itself to stagger harvests and results in extended harvesting seasons. However, the mountainous landscape of Chile limits the extent and intensity of agriculture so that arable land corresponds only to 2.62% of the total territory. Through Chile's trade agreements, its agricultural products have gained access to a market controlling 77% of the world's GDP and by approximately 2012, 74% of Chilean agribusiness exports will be duty-free.

Chile's principal growing region and agricultural heartland is the Central Valley delimited by the Chilean Coast Range in the west, the Andes in the east Aconcagua River by the north and Bío-Bío River by the south. In the northern half of Chile cultivation is highly dependent on irrigation. South of the Central Valley cultivation is gradually replaced by aquaculture, silviculture, sheep and cattle farming.

Salmon
Chile is the second largest producer of salmon in the world. As of August 2007, Chile's share of worldwide salmon industry sales was 38.2%, rising from just 10% in 1990. The average growth rate of the industry for the 20 years between 1984 and 2004 was 42% per year. The presence of large foreign firms in the salmon industry has brought what probably most contributes to Chile's burgeoning salmon production, technology. Technology transfer has allowed Chile to build its global competitiveness and innovation and has led to the expansion of production as well as to an increase in average firm size in the industry. In November 2018, the Chinese company Joyvio Group (Legend Holdings) bought the Chilean salmon producer Australis Seafoods for $880 million, thus gaining control over 30% of all Chilean salmon exports.

Forestry
The Chilean forestry industry grew to comprise 13% of the country's total exports in 2005, making it one of the largest export sectors for Chile. Radiata Pine and Eucalyptus comprise the vast majority of Chile's forestry exports. Within the forestry sector, the largest contributor to total production is pulp, followed by wood-based panels and lumber. Due to popular and increasing demands for Chile's forestry products, the government is currently focusing on increasing the already vast acreage of Chile's Pine and Eucalyptus plantations as well as opening new industrial plants.

Wine

Chile's unique geography and climate make it ideal for winegrowing and the country has made the top ten list of wine producers many times in the last few decades.

The popularity of Chilean wine has been attributed not just to the quantity produced but also to increasing levels of quality. The combination of quantity and quality allows Chile to export excellent wines at reasonable prices to the international market.

Mining
The mining sector in Chile is one of the pillars of Chilean economy. The Chilean government strongly supports foreign investment in the sector and has modified its mining industry laws and regulations to create a favorable investing environment for foreigners. Thanks to a large amount of copper resources, complaisant legislation and an unregulated investment environment, Chile has become one of the main copper producers, with almost 30% of the global annual copper output.

In addition to copper, Chile was, in 2019, the world's largest producer of iodine and rhenium, the second largest producer of lithium and molybdenum, the sixth largest producer of silver, the seventh largest producer of salt, the eighth largest producer of potash, the thirteenth producer of sulfur and the thirteenth producer of iron ore in the world. The country also has considerable gold production: between 2006 and 2017, the country produced annual amounts ranging from 35.9 tonnes in 2017 to 51.3 tonnes in 2013.

Services
The service sector in Chile has grown fast and consistently in recent decades, reinforced by the rapid development of communication and information technology, access to education and an increase in specialist skills and knowledge among the workforce. Chilean foreign policy has recognized the importance of the tertiary sector or service sector to the economy, boosting its international liberalization and leading to the signing of several free trade area agreements. Chilean service exportation consists mainly of maritime and aeronautical services, tourism, retail (department stores, supermarkets, and shopping centers), engineering and construction services, informatics, health and education.

Chile ranked first among Latin American countries (and No. 32 worldwide) in Adecco's 2019 Global Talent Competitiveness Index (GTCI).

Finance
Chile's financial sector has grown quickly in recent years, with a banking reform law approved in 1997 that broadened the scope of permissible foreign activity for Chilean banks. The Chilean Government implemented a further liberalization of capital markets in 2001, and there is further pending legislation proposing further liberalization. Over the last ten years, people who live in Chile have enjoyed the introduction of new financial tools such as home equity loans, currency futures and options, factoring, leasing, and debit cards. The introduction of these new products has also been accompanied by an increased use of traditional instruments such as loans and credit cards. Chile's private pension system, with assets worth roughly $70 billion at the end of 2006, has been an important source of investment capital for the capital market. However, by 2009, it has been reported that $21 billion had been lost from the pension system to the global financial crisis.

Tourism

Tourism in Chile has experienced sustained growth over the last decades. Chile received about 2.25 million foreign visitors in 2006, up to 2.50 million in 2007 The percentages of foreign tourists arrivals by land, air and sea were, respectively, 55.3%, 40.5% and 4.2% for that year. The two main gateways for international tourists visiting Chile are Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport and Paso Los Libertadores.

Chile has a great diversity of natural landscapes, from the Mars-like landscapes of the hyperarid Atacama Desert to the glacier-fed fjords of the Chilean Patagonia, passing by the winelands backdropped by the Andes of the Central Valley and the old-growth forests of the Lakes District. Easter Island and Juan Fernández Archipelago, including Robinson Crusoe Island, are also major attractions.

Many of the most visited attractions in Chile are protected areas. The extensive Chilean protected areas system includes 32 protected parks, 48 natural reserves and 15 natural monuments.

Economic policies

According to the CIA World Factbook, Chile's "sound economic policies", maintained consistently since the 1980s, "have contributed to steady economic growth in Chile and have more than halved poverty rates." The 1973–90 military government sold many state-owned companies, and the three democratic governments since 1990 have implemented export promotion policies and continued privatization, though at a slower pace. The government's role in the economy is mostly limited to regulation, although the state continues to operate copper giant Codelco and a few other enterprises such as BancoEstado.

Under the compulsory private pension system, most formal sector employees pay 10% of their salaries into privately managed funds.

As of 2006, Chile invested 0.6% of its annual GDP in research and development (R&D). Even then, two-thirds of that was government spending. Beyond its general economic and political stability, the government has also encouraged the use of Chile as an "investment platform" for multinational corporations planning to operate in the region. Chile's approach to foreign direct investment is codified in the country's Foreign Investment Law, which gives foreign investors the same treatment as Chileans. Registration is reported to be simple and transparent, and foreign investors are guaranteed access to the official foreign exchange market to repatriate their profits and capital.

Faced with the financial crisis of 2007–2008, the government announced a $4 billion economic stimulus plan to spur employment and growth, and despite the global financial crisis, aimed for an expansion of between 2 percent and 3 percent of GDP for 2009. Nonetheless, economic analysts disagreed with government estimates and predicted economic growth at a median of 1.5 percent. According to the CIA World FactBook, the GDP contracted an estimated −1.7% in 2009.

The Chilean Government has formed a Council on Innovation and Competition, which is tasked with identifying new sectors and industries to promote. It is hoped that this, combined with some tax reforms to encourage domestic and foreign investment in research and development, will bring in additional FDI to new parts of the economy.

According to The Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom in 2012, Chile has the strongest private property rights in Latin America, scoring 90 on a scale of 100.

Chile's AA− S&P credit rating is the highest in Latin America, while Fitch Ratings places the country one step below, in A+.

There are three main ways for Chilean firms to raise funds abroad: bank loans, issuance of bonds, and the selling of stocks on U.S. markets through American Depository Receipts (ADRs). Nearly all of the funds raised through these means go to finance domestic Chilean investment. In 2006, the Government of Chile ran a surplus of $11.3 billion, equal to almost 8% of GDP. The Government of Chile continues to pay down its foreign debt, with public debt only 3.9% of GDP at the end of 2006.

Fiscal policy
One of Chile's fiscal policy central features has been its counter-cyclical nature. This has been facilitated by the voluntary application since 2001 of a structural balance policy based on the commitment to an announced goal of a medium-term structural balance as a percentage of GDP. The structural balance nets out the effect of the economic cycle (including copper price volatility) on fiscal revenues and constrains expenditures to a correspondingly consistent level. In practice, this means that expenditures rise when activity is low and decrease in booms The target was of 1% of GDP between 2001 and 2007, it was reduced to 0.5% in 2008 and then to 0% in 2009 in the wake of the global financial crisis. In 2005, key elements of this voluntary policy were incorporated into legislation through the Fiscal Responsibility Law (Law 20,128).

The Fiscal Responsibility Law also allowed for the creation of two sovereign wealth funds: the Pension Reserve Fund (PRF), to face increased expected old-age benefits liabilities, and the Economic and Social Stabilization Fund (ESSF), to stabilize fiscal spending by providing funds to finance fiscal deficits and debt amortization. By the end of 2012, they had respective market values of US$5.883 million and US$14.998 million.

The main taxes in Chile in terms of revenue collection are the value added tax (45.8% of total revenues in 2012) and the income tax (41.8% of total revenues in 2012). The value added tax is levied on sales of goods and services (including imports) at a rate of 19%, with a few exemptions. The income tax revenue comprises different taxes. While there is a corporate income tax of 20% over profits from companies (called First Category Tax), the system is ultimately designed to tax individuals. Therefore, corporate income taxes paid constitute a credit towards two personal income taxes: the Global Complementary Tax (in the case of residents) or the Additional Tax (in the case of non-residents). The Global Complementary Tax is payable by those that have different sources of income, while those receiving income solely from dependent work are subject to the Second Category Tax. Both taxes are equally progressive in statutory terms, with a top marginal rate of 40%. Income arising from corporate activity under the Global Complementary Tax only becomes payable when effectively distributed to the individual. There are also special sales taxes on alcohol and luxury goods, as well as specific taxes on tobacco and fuel. Other taxes include the inheritance tax and custom duties.

In 2012, general government expenditure reached 21.5% of GDP, while revenues were equivalent to 22% of GDP. Gross financial debt amounted to 12.2% of GDP, while in net terms it was −6.9% of GDP, both well below OECD averages.

Monetary policy
Chile's monetary authority is the Central Bank of Chile (CBoC). The CBoC pursues an inflation target of 3%, with a tolerance range of 1% (below or above). Inflation has followed a relatively stable trajectory since the year 2000, remaining under 10%, despite the temporary surge of some inflationary pressures in the year 2008. The Chilean peso's rapid appreciation against the U.S. dollar in recent years has helped dampen inflation. Most wage settlements and loans are indexed, reducing inflation's volatility.

The CBoC is granted autonomous status by Chile's National Constitution, providing credibility and stability beyond the political cycle. According to the Basic Constitutional Act of the Central Bank of Chile (Law 18,840), its main objectives are to safeguard "the stability of the currency and the normal functioning of internal and external payments". To meet these objectives, the CBoC is enabled to use monetary and foreign exchange policy instruments, along with some discretion on financial regulation. In practice, the CBoC monetary policy is guided by an inflation targeting regime, while the foreign exchange policy is led by a floating exchange rate and, although unusual, the bank reserves the right to intervene in the foreign exchange markets.

Trade policy
Chile is strongly committed to free trade and has welcomed large amounts of foreign investment. Chile has signed free trade agreements (FTAs) with a network of countries, including an FTA with the United States that was signed in 2003 and implemented in January 2004.

Chile unilaterally lowered its across-the-board import tariff for all countries with which it does not have a trade agreement to 6% in 2003. Higher effective tariffs are charged only on imports of wheat, wheat flour, and sugar as a result of a system of import price bands. The price bands were ruled inconsistent with Chile's World Trade Organization (WTO) obligations in 2002, and the government has introduced legislation to modify them. Under the terms of the U.S.–Chile FTA, the price bands will be completely phased out for U.S. imports of wheat, wheat flour, and sugar within 12 years.

Chile is a strong proponent of pressing ahead on negotiations for a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and is active in the WTO's Doha round of negotiations, principally through its membership in the G-20 and Cairns Group.

Most imports are not subject to the full statutory tariff, due to the extensive preferences negotiated outside the multilateral system through Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs). By the last version of the World Trade Organization's Trade Policy Review (October 2009), Chile had signed 21 RTAs with 57 countries and the number has continued to rise in recent years

More recently, Chile has also been an active participant of deeper plurilateral trade agreement negotiations. Notably, Chile is currently in talks with eleven other economies in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a proposed agreement that would stem from the existing P-4 Agreement between Brunei, Chile, New Zealand and Singapore. Chile has signed some form of bilateral or plurilateral agreement with each of the parties at TPP, although with different degrees of integration.

Chile is also a party in conversations to establish the Pacific Alliance along with Peru, Mexico and Colombia.

Foreign trade
2006 was a record year for Chilean trade. Total trade registered a 31% increase over 2005. During 2006, exports of goods and services totaled US$58 billion, an increase of 41%. This figure was somewhat distorted by the skyrocketing price of copper. In 2006, copper exports reached a historical high of US$33.3 billion. Imports totaled US$35 billion, an increase of 17% compared to the previous year. Chile thus recorded a positive trade balance of US$2.3 billion in 2006.

The main destinations for Chilean exports were the Americas (US$39 billion), Asia (US$27.8 billion) and Europe (US$22.2 billion). Seen as shares of Chile's export markets, 42% of exports went to the Americas, 30% to Asia and 24% to Europe. Within Chile's diversified network of trade relationships, its most important partner remained the United States. Total trade with the U.S. was US$14.8 billion in 2006. Since the U.S.–Chile Free Trade Agreement went into effect on 1 January 2004, U.S.–Chilean trade has increased by 154%. Internal Government of Chile figures show that even when factoring out inflation and the recent high price of copper, bilateral trade between the U.S. and Chile has grown over 60% since then.

Total trade with Europe also grew in 2006, expanding by 42%. The Netherlands and Italy were Chile's main European trading partners. Total trade with Asia also grew significantly at nearly 31%. Trade with Korea and Japan grew significantly, but China remained Chile's most important trading partner in Asia. Chile's total trade with China reached U.S. $8.8 billion in 2006, representing nearly 66% of the value of its trade relationship with Asia. =

The growth of exports in 2006 was mainly caused by a strong increase in sales to the United States, the Netherlands, and Japan. These three markets alone accounted for an additional US$5.5 billion worth of Chilean exports. Chilean exports to the United States totaled US$9.3 billion, representing a 37.7% increase compared to 2005 (US$6.7 billion). Exports to the European Union were US$15.4 billion, a 63.7% increase compared to 2005 (US$9.4 billion). Exports to Asia increased from US$15.2 billion in 2005 to US$19.7 billion in 2006, a 29.9% increase.

During 2006, Chile imported US$26 billion from the Americas, representing 54% of total imports, followed by Asia at 22%, and Europe at 16%. Mercosur members were the main suppliers of imports to Chile at US$9.1 billion, followed by the United States with US$5.5 billion and the European Union with US$5.2 billion. From Asia, China was the most important exporter to Chile, with goods valued at US$3.6 billion. Year-on-year growth in imports was especially strong from a number of countries – Ecuador (123.9%), Thailand (72.1%), Korea (52.6%), and China (36.9%).

Chile's overall trade profile has traditionally been dependent upon copper exports. The state-owned firm CODELCO is the world's largest copper-producing company, with recorded copper reserves of 200 years. Chile has made an effort to expand nontraditional exports. The most important non-mineral exports are forestry and wood products, fresh fruit and processed food, fishmeal and seafood, and wine.

Trade agreements
Over the last several years, Chile has signed FTAs with the European Union, South Korea, New Zealand, Singapore, Brunei, China, and Japan. It reached a partial trade agreement with India in 2005 and began negotiations for a full-fledged FTA with India in 2006. Chile conducted trade negotiations in 2007 with Australia, Malaysia, and Thailand, as well as with China to expand an existing agreement beyond just trade in goods. Chile concluded FTA negotiations with Australia and an expanded agreement with China in 2008. The members of the P4 (Chile, Singapore, New Zealand, and Brunei) also plan to conclude a chapter on finance and investment in 2008.

Successive Chilean governments have actively pursued trade-liberalizing agreements. During the 1990s, Chile signed free trade agreements (FTA) with Canada, Mexico, and Central America. Chile also concluded preferential trade agreements with Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador. An association agreement with Mercosur-Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay-went into effect in October 1996. Continuing its export-oriented development strategy, Chile completed landmark free trade agreements in 2002 with the European Union and South Korea. Chile, as a member of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) organization, is seeking to boost commercial ties to Asian markets. To that end, it has signed trade agreements in recent years with New Zealand, Singapore, Brunei, India, China, and most recently Japan. In 2007, Chile held trade negotiations with Australia, Thailand, Malaysia, and China. In 2008, Chile hopes to conclude an FTA with Australia, and finalize an expanded agreement (covering trade in services and investment) with China. The P4 (Chile, Singapore, New Zealand, and Brunei) also plan to expand ties through adding a finance and investment chapter to the existing P4 agreement. Chile's trade talks with Malaysia and Thailand are also scheduled to continue in 2008.

After two years of negotiations, the United States and Chile signed an agreement in June 2003 that will lead to completely duty-free bilateral trade within 12 years. The U.S.-Chile FTA entered into force 1 January 2004, following approval by the U.S. and Chilean congresses. The FTA has greatly expanded U.S.-Chilean trade ties, with total bilateral trade jumping by 154% during the FTA's first three years. On 1 January 2014, Chile-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement officially took effect.

Issues
Unemployment hovered at 8–10% after the start of the economic slowdown in 1999, above the 7% average for the 1990s. Unemployment finally dipped to 7.8% in 2006, and continued to fall in 2007, averaging 6.8% monthly (up to August). Wages have risen faster than inflation as a result of higher productivity, boosting national living standards. The percentage of Chileans with household incomes below the poverty line – defined as twice the cost of satisfying a person's minimal nutritional needs – fell from 45.1% in 1987 to 11.7% in 2015, according to government polls. Critics in Chile, however, argue that poverty figures are considerably higher than those officially published; until 2016, the government defined the poverty line based on an outdated 1987 household consumption poll, instead of more recent polls from 1997 or 2007. According to critics who use data from the 1997 poll, the poverty rate goes up to 29%; a study published in 2017 claims that it reaches 26%. Using the relative yardstick favoured in many European countries, 27% of Chileans would be poor, according to Juan Carlos Feres of the ECLAC. Starting in 2016, a new Multidimensional Poverty Index is also used, which reached 20.9% using 2015 data.

The percent of total income earned by the richest 20% of the Chilean population in 2000 was 61.0% of GDP, while the percent of total income earned by the poorest 20% of the Chilean population was 3.3% of GDP. Chile's Gini Coefficient in 2003 (53.8) has slightly changed in comparison with the value in 1995 (56.4). In 2005 the 10% poorest among the Chileans received 1.2% of GNP (2000 = 1.4%), while the 10% richest received 47% of GNP (2000 = 46%).

Regarding the census, assessments have exhibited mixed results. An initial evaluation by a domestic independent experts panel released in August 2013 placed the omission rate in 9.3%, three times as much as other census in the region, and recommended annulling the census to hold a new version in 2015. The government sought an assessment by international experts before making a final decision. The team, which included three experts that represented the World Bank and the E.U. Statistics Commission, found "no basis for doubting the usability of the census data for most, if perhaps not all, of the customary uses" and recommended its release subject to the elimination of the imputation of housing units not observed on thBy 2021, the combined wealth of Chile's billionaires represented 16.1% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP

Historians generally explain the origin of the social gap by tracing it back to colonial times, when most land was divided between Spaniards and their descendants. This gave rise to the hacienda, in which society was divided between owners, employees, tenants and workers. Since this agrarian inequality, the concentration of wealth has spread to other economic sectors that exploit natural resources, such as mining. In more recent history, social inequality deepened in the 1970s and 1980s under Augusto Pinochet's regime, with the privatization of public enterprises in favor of large family fortunes, the repression of trade unions and the rejection of the welfare state. As social mobility is very low in Chile, social status is passed down from generation to generation.e ground during the enumeration and the concurrent publication of a methodological and administrative report.

Social inequalities
By 2021, the combined wealth of Chile's billionaires represented 16.1% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP).

Historians generally explain the origin of the social gap by tracing it back to colonial times, when most land was divided between Spaniards and their descendants. This gave rise to the hacienda, in which society was divided between owners, employees, tenants and workers. Since this agrarian inequality, the concentration of wealth has spread to other economic sectors that exploit natural resources, such as mining. In more recent history, social inequality deepened in the 1970s and 1980s under Augusto Pinochet's regime, with the privatization of public enterprises in favor of large family fortunes, the repression of trade unions and the rejection of the welfare state. As social mobility is very low in Chile, social status is often passed down from generation to generation.

Main economic indicators
The following table shows the main economic indicators in 1980–2021 (with IMF staff estimates in 2024–2029). Inflation below 5% is in green.

GDP composition
Main macroeconomic aggregates of GDP.

Note: Data are preliminary. Source: Cuentas Nacionales de Chile – Evolución de la actividad económica en el año 2015 (p. 29), Central Bank of Chile, accessed on 23 March 2016.

GDP by sector
Gross domestic product by sector of the economy.

Note: 2011 data are preliminary. Source: Cuentas Nacionales – Evolución de la actividad económica en el año 2011 (p. 34). Central Bank of Chile. accessed on 22 March 2012.

Top exports

Chile's top exports in 2013.

Source: Central Bank of Chile's statistics database.

title: Economy of Chile