The 1988 referendum: Yes or No

As I've told you in the lecture, Pinochet's new constitution included a referendum in 1998 to define the continuity of his administration. Pinochet was convinced that he was going to win, so he prepared the referendum (plebiscito in spanish) defining himself as the candidate.

In those years Pinochet's advisers commited a terrible mistake: the government gave to the to options Yes and No, fifteen minutes on TV every day at 11 pm for free for political campaign. The Coallition of Parties for Democracy saw immediately the opportunity that 15 minutes on TV meant, and they put all their efforts to send a message positive, optimistic, talking about change, hope, and future. In fact the campaign slogan was "Chile: Joy is coming".

Pinochet's advisers didn't have much interest in this fifteen minutes. Who's going to watch and resist fifteen minutes of political campaign? they asked. But the truth is that everyone watched it, and after that, citizens matured their ideas and opinions, and then, on october 5Th of 1998, they decided: No option obtained a 56% of the votes. Yes option obtained a 44% of the votes.

I leave you two videos for you to watch: the No campaign and the Yes campaign. You'll notice the differences! After a few weeks, Pinochet's advisers tried to change their campaign, but didn't work either. Here we have the results.