Liberal-Conservative Fusion (Liberal-Conservadora)

The Fusion grew out of a Chilean political alliance formed in January 1858 to fight against President Manuel Montt (1851–1861) and his National Party (founded December 1857) in the congressional elections of that year. It consisted of the Liberals, who had been in opposition since 1830, and those Conservatives (probably a majority) then defecting from Montt, partly provoked by his handling of the Question of the Sacristan. This alliance of old enemies was more resilient than its opponents suspected it would be: It lasted fifteen years. In 1859 the Fusion mounted unsuccessful armed rebellions against Montt. His tolerant successor, José Joaquín Pérez (1861–1871), invited the alliance into the cabinet in July 1862. Though opposed by the now-displaced Nationals and also by the "unreconstructed" Liberals known as Radicals, the Fusion retained its power, and in 1871 elected its own president, Federico Errázuriz Zañartu (1871–1876). It finally broke up in 1873 over a contentious dispute about private education, when the Conservatives went into opposition.

See alsoChile, Political Parties: National Party; Montt Torres, Manuel.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Collier, Simon. Chile: The Making of a Republic, 1830–1865: Politics and Ideas. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Stuven, Ana María. La seducción de un orden: Las elites y la construcción de Chile en las polémicas culturales y políticas del siglo XIX. Santiago: Ediciones Universidad Católica de Chile, 2000.

                                          Simon Collier