WEEKLY SUMMARY

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Secret
DIRECTORATE OF
INTELLIGENCE
WEEKLY SUMMARY
Special Report
Christian Democracy in Latin America: Myth or Reality?
Secret
N? 43
19 December 1969
No. 0401/69B
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CHRISTIAN DEMOCRACY IN LATIN AMERICA: MYTH OR REALITY?
The decisive victory of Eduardo Frei in the 1964 Chilean presidential election
led many influential North and Latin Americans to hope that Christian Democ-
racy (CD) would develop into a significant political force throughout Latin
America; that Christian Democrats would ally with the existing democratic left,
compete with Communism on ideological grounds, and offer an alternative,
democratic route to social and economic progress.
Five years after the Frei victory, and despite the election this year of
Christian Democrat Rafael Caldera as President cf Venezuela, the fortunes of
Christian Democracy appear to be on a downward trend, and the dreams of a
hemisphere -wide Christian Democratic Revolution have proved to be no more
than that. Perhaps the most important reason for the failure of Christian Democ-
racy in general is the poor outlook for a victory by the Christian Democrats in the
Chilean presidential elections next year and that party's failure to attract wide-
spread support and to institute its programs even though it is the leading political
force in the country. Traditional Latin American aversion for ideology, the
continued dominance of personalisrro in politics, :he increase in the number of
military governments, the continued growth of xerophobic nationalism, and the
Christian Democrats' own failure to develop strong leaders and effective organiza-
tions are also factors contributing to the lack of success of Christian Democracy.
Despite all of the problems and shortcomings of Christian Democracy,
however, its relative success or failure is still in the hands of fickle voters. Under
certain circumstances, for example if the party represented the only alternative to
Communism, as in Chile, or to an unpopular government, as in El Salvador, the
CDs might continue to play an important political role in several countries.
Special Report 19 December 1969
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CURRENT BALANCE S1 IEET
The Christian Democratic movement is gen-
erally agreed to be of current political significance
in only three Latin American countries-Chicle,
Venezuela, and El Salvador.
In Chile, the party demonstrated growing
popularity from 1964, when Frei was elected
President with 56.1 percent of the vote, through
the 1965 legislative elections, when it garnered
42.3 percent of the total vote. In the 1967 mun ic-
ipal elections, however, its strength had eroded to
35.6 percent of the total vote, and dropped in the
1969 legislative elections to 29.7 percent. Never-
theless, the party is still the strongest political
entity in Chile; 55 of the 150 members in the
Chamber of Deputies and 20 of 50 senators are
Christian Democrats.
Chile's Christian Democrats have had trouble
with party discipline almost from the beginning
of their ascendancy. In fact, it can be argued that
the party came to power almost too quickly: it
had not developed basic party structure at the
grass roots and lacked secondary leaders. Before
1965 the Christian Democrats did not have
enough legislators to be more than a desirable
collaborator in government activities. Moreover,
the party's leading figures found governing a
chore, and they frequently acted in a manner
irritating to other democratic parties. Frei has not
been able to keep the party in line, and its prob-
lems are regularly aired in public. A long series of
internal party disputes finally culminated this
year in a split in the ranks when the left wing
formed its own autonomous faction, the United
Popular Action Movement (MAPU).
In essence, the party, which showed so much
promise in 1964, has virtually hit bottom. 1 t is
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S1,:CRET
now try:'ng to recapture the elan and sense of
mission that its lack of political realism and quar-
reling conduct have almost destroyed. Radomiro
Tomic, the party's 1970 presidential candidate, is
hardheaded, energetic, and ambitious. His abys-
mal showing in the first popularity polls of the
various presidential candidates should goad him
and the party into renewed activity. He has no-
where to go but up, and he may make a good
showing -perhaps good enough to bring about a
virtual three-way tie, in which case Congress will
select the president.
Radomiro Tomic
Chilean Christian Democratic
Presidential Candidate
Eduardo Frei
Chilean President
Tomic's candidacy will probably help to re-
group and reorganize the party, which still has a
great deal of support among some lower class
groups that its policies have helped visibly during
the last five years. The party should also receive
the votes of many who still believe in reform
without Communism. Their numbers, however,
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are not expected to amount to more than 30
percent of the total vote. Meanwhile, the party
will retain over a third of the deputies and slightly
less than half of the senators until 1973, and at
least 12 will remain until 1977. This is based on
the risky assumption, of course, that there will be
no further splits in the party. The Christian Dem-
ocratic Party of Chile will remain an important
political force, at least through its legislative
strength, for some time, but it is not likely to
retain its present leading position in politics.
In Venezuela, Social Christian Party
(COPEI) leader Rafael Caldera was elected Presi-
dent in December 1968. His victory, made possi-
ble by a split in the Democratic Action Party and
touted several years ago as a bellwether of the
Christian Democratic movement in Latin Amer-
ica, has not materialized as such. In fact, Caldera's
triumph (29.08 percent of the total vote), which
was less than one percent over his nearest rival,
and COPEI's relatively small congressional repre-
sentation (59 of 216 seats in the Chamber of
Deputies and only 16 of 57 seats in the Senate),
have left him in the practically untenable position
of presiding over a minority government. The new
President has had immense difficulty in imple-
menting his programs and has been further handi-
capped by an empty treasury, courtesy of the
former government.
The party suffers from ideological unrest
and has always been troubled to some degree by
right-wing and left-wing factionalism. When the
party was first founded, the conservative faction
exerted the strongest influence because COPEI
then drew its strength from the conservative agri-
cultural areas of the Andean region. Caldera, then
the leader of the more leftist faction that favored
moderate social and economic reforms, worked to
change the composition and image of the party.
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Over the years workers, some peasants, and stu-
dents have gradually replaced the early conserva-
tive supporters. Because of this, the party has
been able to expand from its base in the Andean
region and to develop electoral strength through-
out the; nation. In 1968, the party broke into
three factions: a right-wing group, the dominant
moderate faction, and a left-wing faction formed
by COPEI's youth movement. Despite the left
wing's relative lack of discipline and its radical
programs, the belief that 196'9 would be its year
for success kept the party united behind Caldera
and prevented an open schism.
Rafael Caldera
Venezuelan President
The present outlook for the Caldera govern-
ment is not good. The President's inability to
implement his programs, a faltering economy, the
failure of the guerrilla pacification program to
accomplish much, and continuous student disor-
ders have stirred latent unrest within the military.
COPEI is firmly rooted as a political party
and there is little chance that it will disappear
from the scene even if there is a coup. Some
persons have conjectured that if Caldera is
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removed from office, the party might be able to
shore up its internal differences. It might also be
able to gain more popular support because of
sympathy accruing to it as the party turned out
of office. On the other hand, a complete split in
the party ranks may well occur.
In El Salvador the Christian Democratic
Party (PDC), founded in 1961, is now the second
largest political party in the country. Emerging in
the 1964 municipal and legislative election as the
principal opposition with 25.9 percent of the
vote, the PDC has continued to gain strength. In
1966, it captured 31.2 percent of the total vote,
and also won the municipality of Santa Tecla, the
country's fourth largest city. In 1968, it won 42.8
percent of the vote and increased its legislative
strength to 19 of 52 seats. It also increased its
municipal strength by winning 81 of 261 munic-
ipalities, including seven of the 14 department
capitals (among them the big three: San Salvador,
Santa Ana, and San Miguel).
The PDC faces a number of problems going
into the congressional and municipal elections in
March 1970. Jose Napoleon Duarte, the three-
term mayor of San Salvador and the party's
secretary general, has decided not to run for an-
other term, and the party is having difficulty
selecting a candidate for the coveted position. In
addition, strains within the party are being aggra-
vated by the jockeying for position on the PDC
list of legislative candidates. Nevertheless, Duarte
and Dr. Abraham Rodriguez, the party's legal
adviser and its 1967 presidential candidate,
should be able to minimize the differences.
The party's most serious problem, howeve
is its relations with the Salvadoran military.[
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Jose Napoleon Duarte
Mayor of San Salvador
the party is con-
cerned that even if there is no coup and no major
electoral fraud, it will still be unable to sustain
the electoral momentum of the past three legisla-
tive contests. Although party leaders are confi-
dent the government party will lose its razor-thin
legislative majority if the elections are free, they
feel that the PDC may also lose some seats, and
that significant gains will be made by the far left.
In this eventuality, the CDs might emerge from
the elections as the senior partner in an opposi-
tion coalition that would control the Assembly.
The Dominican Republic
Although not of great political significance
as yet, the Revolutionary Social Christian Party
(PRSC) of the Dominican Republic has made
some impressive gains since its founding in 1961.
Following a period of radical leadership from
1962 until it was trounced at the polls in the
1966 presidential elections (gaining only 2.3
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percent of the total vote), the PRSC under Cao-
nabo Javier began to moderate its policies and. to
advocate constructive opposition to the Balaguer
government.
The new policies were partly responsible for
the PRSC's improved showing in the municipal
elections of 1968. Running candidates in only 35
of the country's 77 municipalities and severely
hampered by a lack of funds, the party won
125,000 votes (about 12 percent of the total),
gaining control of two councils and membership
on 12 others. In the capital, the PRSC attracted a
little more than 21 percent of the votes. The
party's showing, however, was boosted by the
decision of the PRD, the major opposition party,
to boycott the elections as a protest against Presi-
dent Balaguer.
Despite the party's improved showing, disa-
greements between the national hierarchy and
leaders of the party's youth organizations-the
national university's Revolutionary Social Chris-
tian Bloc (the country's second largest student
organization) and the Revolutionary Social Chris-
tian Youth (the only democratically oriented
youth groups of substantial size)-have continued.
Some members of the youth organizations, whose
main strength is concentrated in the national dis-
trict, oppose the party's tentative decision to
compete in the 1970 elections, preferring an ab-
stentionist policy if Balaguer decides to run for
re-election. The PRSC is the only major party to
nominate a candidate for 1970-Alfonso Moreno,
who was also its candidate in 1962.
The party's progress continues to be ham-
pered by its inability to establish a strong national
organization, to overcome financial difficulties,
and to come up with a charismatic leader. The
financial problem may be partially rectified by
the Venezuelan Christian Democratic Party's
promise to pay a monthly subsidy to the PRSC.
Special. Report
Moreover, the increasing radicalization of Juan
Bosch's PRD gives the PRSC an opportunity to
move into the "moderate" center-left vacuum,
although it must now compete with the recently
formed party of former provisional president
Hector Garcia-Godoy for this vote. In seeking
wider support, the PRSC's potential is enhanced
by its affiliation with the country's 30,000-mem-
ber Autonomous Confederation of Christian
Trade Unions (CASC) and a growing campesino
organization. Although a coalition with Garcia-
Godoy, or participation in a "national front" in
1970 remains a possibility, the PRSC's early deci-
sion to nominate Moreno suggests that it intends
to build slowly, looking toward 1974.
The limited promise shown by the Christian
Democratic parties in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil,
and Panama has been arrested by their respective
military governments. The Guatemalan party,
which was legalized in 1967, has demonstrated
some strength among students and campesinos
and will probably run a presidential candidate in
the next elections, but he will have no chance of
winning. The remaining seven parties-in Colom-
bia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Nicaragua,
Paraguay, and Uruguay-show scant promise of
developing into forces of national importance
over the next five years.
WHY CHRISTIAN DEMOCRACY HAS FAILED
The reasons for the failure of Christian
Democracy to attract wide following in Latin
America are many and varied. Some are inherent
in the nature of Christian Democratic ideology.
Others are particular to the Latin version of the
movement, and still others are bound up in the
matrix of Latin American politics. The following
is an attempt to highlight the more important
causes of the movement's lack of success.
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IDEOLOGICAL COMPLICATIONS
In general terms, one of the fundamental
problems of Christian Democracy that has led to
specific difficulties faced by the movement is its
idealistic oversimplification of world realities.
This has, in turn, led to gross miscalculations and
errors in political judgment- Some Christian
Democrats have long appeared to believe that
Messianic zeal and high-sounding phraseology are
all that is necessary to transform society and
human nature. Although this phenomenon may
be written off as merely campaign exaggeration,
the evidence indicates that some of the party
politicians really believe in it. In fact, this belief
may be partially responsible for the split in the
Chilean party, because the radical "true believers"
felt they could no longer coexist with the more
pragmatic party "moderates."
Oversimplification of problems has also led
Christian Democrats to place great faith in social
planning and social "engineering." Political and
social problems, according to Edward J. Williams
in his book, Latin American Christian Democratic
Parties, are "depicted as technical problems and
written off as easily resolved by technical meas-
ures." The errors in this approach are obvious.
Latin American society, which is basically con-
servative and composed of traditional economic,
social, cultural, and political patterns, cannot be
altered by simple agrarian reform measures or
nationalization of industry. In each case, an influ-
ential portion of society will be offended, and
support for the CDs will diminish. The view that
"all will participate in the benefits of the new
society, according to their true necessities and
capacities" is purely theoretical, especially in the
Latin American context, and the realities of the
situation must be considered.
In Chile, for example, the Christian
Democrats' decision to "go it alone" in 1964 and
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not to seek alliances with other components of
the democratic left eventually forced the party
into a situation where collaboration was possible
only with the Communists. This basically unna-
tural relationship alienated many of the moder-
ates who were in part responsible for the CD
victory in 1964 over the Marxists. The party is
now faced with the difficult task of trying to woo
these moderates back in order to win in 1970.
Unfortunately, many scores remain unsettled and
the division between the CDs and the more mod-
erate elements that spawned them may never be
mended.
"The Social and cultural matrix within which Latin
America's political leaders operate at present it such
that effective and representative popular democracy
is, with few exceptions, not a feasible alternative. The
only really responsible questions that a demo-
cratically minded observer can ask of a politician in
Latin America today is whether his conduct is con-
ducive toward increasing the prospect of popular and
representative democracy. "
Frank Tennenpaum
Ten Keys to Latin America
The idealistically vague and incomplete
Christian Democratic program, which may have
appealed to the voters in the past, has not reached
full fruition. While improving the lot of the poor,
it has antagonized the moderates. Because the
goals for the most part are unattainable, the CDs
have been limited largely to negative activity and
in many cases have been forced into simply re-
sponding to initiatives from other political par-
ties. The Salvadoran party, for example, has been
outmaneuvered by the government many times
because it has not established a basic set of prin-
ciples to guide it within certain ideological param-
eters. Its solution to each specific every-day prob-
lem, therefore, has been to write a "paper" after
the opposition has taken the initiative.
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j In addition to the complications mentioned
above, the basic ideological tenets of Christian
Democracy have never been widely accepted by
the majority of Latin Americans. Latins tradi-
tionally are nonideological in nature and usually
elect officials on the basis of personality. Even
where Christian Democratic ideology agrees with
popular sentiment-anti-Americanism, opposition
to the oligarchy or to foreign capitalism-Chris-
tian Democrats may be submerged by the popular
appeal of a personalistic candidate such as the
present politically attractive Jorge Alessandri in
Chile.
The continued dominance of personalism
and militarism in Latin American politics is an-
other factor inhibiting the growth of Christian
Democracy. As mentioned before, these forces
are more typical of Latin American heritage than
is the ideologically based Christian Democratic
movement. The increase in the number of mili-
tary governments in recent years has curtailed the
amount of political party activity in the area, and
the small, developing Christian Democratic en-
tities in Argentina, Peru, Brazil, and Bolivia have
not really had an opportunity to attract fol-
lowers.
Military unrest in Chile, moreover, simply
reinforces the Latin American military's inherent
suspicion of the motives and aims of Christian
Democracy. For their own part, the CDs have
never made much of an effort to allay military
fears of their movement.
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NATIONALISM
Latin America's rampant nationalism is also
affecting Christian Democracy. As long-time ad-
vocates of continental unity, the Christian Demo-
crats have been forced to adopt the nationalistic
tendencies now prevalent in Latin society. As a
result, the exchange of information and ideas, as
well as cooperation between national CD parties,
has been severely limited. The mystique of the
international aspects of Christian Democracy has
been shattered and the idea of the ideology's
sweeping the continent is no longer realistic.
Nationalism has also resulted in a loss of
prestige and influence for the international arms
of the movement, such as the Confederation of
Christian Trade Unions (CLASC) and the Chris-
tian Democratic Organization of America
(ODCA).
So far, CLASC has been a failure as an
organized force except among the campesinos. Its
only impact and sole purpose have been as an
instrument of political action attempting to ap-
peal to the working classes. In this role it has
earned a reputation for independent action and
irresponsibility that has reflected negatively on
the whole Christian Democratic movement.
ODCA, the regional organization formed in
1949, has not evolved beyond a sort of fraternity
held together more by negative factors such as
hostility to US capitalism and the oligarchies than
by any basic agreement among its members on
doctrine or principles. Moreover, the individual
national parties have made it very clear that they
will fight any effort-whether initiated by ODCA
or by European financial backers of the CD move-
ment-to impose standards and controls that will
impinge on their freedom of action. Opposition
to ODCA has also been voiced by several national
governments. The most recent example is the
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Guatemalan Government's decision to prohibit
the holding of a congress by ODCA in Guatamala
City on the grounds that it would constitute
interference by an international political force in
internal Guatemalan affairs.
INTERNAL PARTY DISSENSION
Accompanying the shattering of at least the
facade of continental unity has been the growth
of internal dissension in the various national CD
parties. The split in the Chilean party is a good
example of this phenomenon. Only six months
after Frei took office, the party's left wing led by
Alberto Jerez and Jesus Silva Solar nearly gained
control of the party in an open challenge to the
President. In 1969, this small but active faction
left the party to form the United Popular Action
Movement (MAPU) and moved quickly into full
rapport with the Communists and even the more
extreme Socialists. The loss of some of the MAPU
troublemakers was in some ways a blessing to the
party, but it also took away some of the party's
more energetic individuals.
In all the Latin American parties the youth
wings have shown a propensity for radicalization.
In several countries, in fact, the positions assumed
by the CD youth groups are almost indistinguish-
able from those of Communist youth elements.
This phenomenon has in some cases contributed
to military distrust of the CD's even before a
party evolves. The great concern of responsible
party leaders is that as these students progress
from campus to parent party, they will swell the
ranks of the radical wings and push the parties
further left. Other observers, however, expect the
"hotheads" to mellow once they participate di-
rectly in party life and have to cope with hard
political reality. Both views can be defended.
Some mellowing is inevitable, but in the past ten
years the demand for revolutionary change has
mushroomed among youth.
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Christian Democracy, in one form or an-
other, is likely to be a permanent political fixture
in Latin America. The first flush of enthusiasm
following the Frei victory in Chile in 1964 has
been lost, however, and even the Caldera victory
this year has not restored it. Although Christian
Democrats might continue to win legislative or
municipal elections in several countries, it appears
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that, as in other typical Latin American political
parties, the various national parties' success will
be entirely dependent on factors such as the char-
isma of the leader, the party's organizational tal-
ents, and its approach to local issues. Interna-
tional events and ideology will continue to u
for little.
"Christian Democracy seems to be failing in Latin
America. It appealed to many because it offered
something more satisfying than material progress....
Yet, this: mirage seems to be little more than a
glimmer on and sands.... The brute struggle for politi-
cal power, which is a basic fact of life everywhere and
especially in Latin America, has destroyed the dream
of Christian brotherhood. "
Commentary
Hispanic American Report
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