information:highlighting, structural:scholar_edition
Resolution by the Chamber of Deputies

On 22 August 1973, the Christian Democrats and the National Party members of the Chamber of Deputies joined to vote 81 to 47 in favor of a resolution that made accusation of disregard by the government of the separation of powers and arrogating legislative and judicial prerogatives to the executive branch of government, among other alleged constitutional violations. The resolution asked the authorities to "put an immediate end" to "breach the Constitution... with the goal of redirecting government activity toward the path of law and ensuring the Constitutional order of our Nation, and the essential underpinnings of democratic co-existence among Chileans." The resolution declared that Allende's government sought "to conquer absolute power with the obvious purpose of subjecting all citizens to the strictest political and economic control by the state... the goal of establishing... a totalitarian system" and claimed that the government had made "violations of the Constitution... a permanent system of conduct".

Specifically, the government of Allende was accused of ruling by decree and thwarting the normal legislative system; refusing to enforce judicial decisions against its partisans; not carrying out sentences and judicial resolutions that contravened its objectives; ignoring the decrees of the independent General Comptroller's Office; sundry media offenses, including usurping control of the National Television Network and applying economic pressure against those media organizations that were not unconditional supporters of the government; allowing its supporters to assemble with arms, and preventing the same by its right-wing opponents; supporting more than 1,500 illegal takeovers of farms; illegal repression of the El Teniente miners' strike; and illegally limiting emigration. Finally, the resolution condemned the creation and development of government-protected socialist armed groups, which were said to be "headed towards a confrontation with the armed forces". President Allende's efforts to re-organize the military and the police forces were characterized as "notorious attempts to use the armed and police forces for partisan ends, destroy their institutional hierarchy, and politically infiltrate their ranks".