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Story November 22, 2013

Part II: Chile's Enduring Rifts

Country:

Chile

Authors:

Jeff Kelly Lowenstein
Grantee

Jon Lowenstein
Grantee

English

Four decades after the military overthrew Chile’s democratically-elected government, the past...

Multiple Authors

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Pamela Betancur and her son Juan Jose Larraguibel in the kitchen of their house in a campamento, or shantytown, in the La Florida neighborhood in Santiago. Betancur came from from Los Angeles, in Southern Chile, to Santiago as a teen-ager. She said that she was planning to vote for Michelle Bachelet in the Presidential election because Bachelet had created programs for women during her first term in office, from 2006 to 2010. Image by Jon Lowenstein/NOOR/Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Chile, 2013.

A toast at the home of a pair of doctors in the wealthy Vitacura neighborhood of Santiago. The doctors had voted to keep Pinochet in power in the 1988 plebiscite. They said that life in the country was terrible under the former President Salvador Allende. They planned to vote for conservative candidate Evelyn Matthei in the Presidential election. Image by Jon Lowenstein/NOOR/Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Chile, 2013.

Rubis Betancur stands in front of a fire for a family barbeque at his home in a campamento in La Florida. He’s lived there for about ten years, moving from Los Angeles,Chile, to find better opportunities. Many of family members that said they were not going to vote in the upcoming Presidential elections because they feel that candidates only come to the community around election time in search of votes, but do not keep the promises that they make. Image by Jon Lowenstein/NOOR/Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Chile, 2013.

Students perform exercises at the Liberator Bernardo O’Higgins Military School, in Santiago, on November 17th. Founded in 1817, the school has been a training ground for Chilean military officers for nearly two centuries. Pinochet graduated from the school in the nineteen-thirties. This year’s Presidential election was the sixth since his dictatorship ended. Image by Jon Lowenstein/NOOR/Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Chile, 2013.

A crowd of thousands of people waits for the Presidential front-runner Michelle Bachelet to speak at her final campaign event, in Quinta Normal Park, on November 14th, in Santiago. Bachelet served as President from 2006 to 2010, and she is looking to become the first two-time President of Chile since the end of Pinochet dictatorship, in 1990. Image by Jon Lowenstein/NOOR/Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Chile, 2013.

A performer waves to the crowd of thousands of people at Michelle Bachelet’s final campaign event. The event featured performances by folklore legends, including Inti Illimani, the popular group Chanco en Piedra, and the rapper DJ Mendez, who wrote Bachelet’s campaign song, “Chile de Todos.” Image by Jon Lowenstein/NOOR/Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Chile, 2013.

A campaign poster endorsing former Presidential candidate Manuel Jose Ossandon, which reads, “I BELIEVE YOU.” Ossandon won the race against Laurence Golborne, the former Presidential candidate for the conservative U.D.I., or Independent Democratic Union Party. Image by Jon Lowenstein/NOOR/Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Chile, 2013.

A man stands in the playground of a school in the Independencia neighborhood of Santiago, on November 17th. Voting is held in schools throughout the country. The November election was the first post-dictatorship election in which voting was voluntary for eligible adults, and about fifty per cent of the nation’s 13.5 million people of voting age went to the polls. Image by Jon Lowenstein/NOOR/Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Chile, 2013.

A woman wearing a mask and holding a fish stands outside the entrance of Estadio Nacional, or the National Stadium, in Santiago, shortly before the polls closed. The woman compared the fish to the Presidential candidates Michelle Bachelet and Evelyn Matthei. Image by Jon Lowenstein/NOOR/Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Chile, 2013.

A crowd files out of Quinta Normal Park after Michelle Bachelet’s final campaign event. By law, candidates must suspend campaign activities three days before the election. Bachelet struck an inclusive tone in her address, talking about the importance of building a tolerant, fair, and just society. Image by Jon Lowenstein/NOOR/Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. Chile, 2013.

The Chilean Presidential election, which took place last Sunday, November 17th, yielded inconclusive results. Michelle Bachelet, the center-left candidate who received forty-seven per cent of the vote, will face her rival, the center-right candidate Evelyn Matthei, in a run-off election this coming December. The brothers Jon Lowenstein and Jeff Kelly Lowenstein have been documenting this moment in Chile's history, forty years after Pinochet's military coup.

The Sunday election marked the first time that voting was voluntary for eligible adults in Chile. On the days leading up to the election, the Lowensteins attended campaign rallies and surveyed both Chilean's general interest in the candidates and the current tenor of the country at large on the eve of the voting.

See the first part of the Lowenstein brothers' "Enduring Rifts" series, and check back next week for the final segment.