Chile’s Salvador Allende Leads the Popular Unity Coalition to Victory
On 4 September 1970, Salvador Allende was elected President of Chile, as the leader of the Popular Unity Coalition. He won a narrow plurality in the election, which required a subsequent contingent vote by Congress to confirm his victory after no candidate secured an outright majority in the popular vote. Ultimately, on 3 November 1970, Salvador Allende became president of Chile, despite attempts by the United States’ Nixon administration to prevent his election. In office, Allende pursued a policy he called “La vía chilena al socialismo!” (Spanish for “The Chilean Way to Socialism!”).
On 4 September 1970, after winning the Presidential elections the government comprising the Socialists, Communists, Social Democrats and left Christian Democrats pursued radical anti-oligarchic, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist policies. For the major parties, the socialist and communist, it was the culmination of a long, hard parliamentary and extra-parliamentary struggle. The victory demonstrated the strength of an organised working class and peasantry led by political parties guided by the ideology of Marxism-Leninism. The government inherited a colossal economic problem – the national debt was more than $4 billion, agricultural production was low, 300,000 were unemployed and some half-million families were homeless.
In his victory speech delivered on the morning of 5 September 1970, from the balco
