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Significance: Arias's support was down slightly, however, and that of his nearest rival, Ottón Solí­s of the Partido Acción Ciudadana (PAC), had risen. The poll also showed that the PLN was unlikely to gain a majority in congress and that the ruling Partido Unidad Social Cristiano was likely to be reduced to a minority party.

The Unimer poll, conducted throughout the country between 11-23 November, showed support for Arias at 45%, down 2% on August. Solí­s's backing was 21%, up from 17%. The third candidate was Otto Guevara, from the Movimiento Libertario, who moved up from 10% support to 15%. Ricardo Toledo of the ruling PUSC was still lagging behind with 3%. The findings were based on interviews with 2,418 voters and have a margin of error of 2%.

According to the same poll three parties will dominate the next parliament; the PLN, the PAC and the ML. Around 39% of respondents plan to vote for PLN deputies, which would translate into 23 seats in the 57-seat parliament. The poll showed 20% would back PAC candidates, 13% those from the ML and only 9% for candidates from the governing PUSC.

BRAZIL: The trade surplus stood at US$535m in the second week of January, according to the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade.

CHILE: Copper exports rose 21% in 2005 from the previous year to $17.337bn according to the central bank.

CHILE: The trade surplus stood at US$494.5m for the first week of January, according to central bank figures.

PERU: The economy grew 7.88% year-on-year in November 2005, according to the national statistics institute INEI.

Development: On 19 February Ecuadorean military patrols became involved in a firefight with Colombian guerrillas from the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia.

Significance: This was the first gun battle between Ecuadorean troops and the Farc. Ecuador says the Colombians were trying to set up a secret base in Ecuadorean territory, but the military's response forced them to cross back over the border. Defence minister Oswaldo Jarrí­n refused to accept the idea that the Farc operates in Ecuador.

The battle happened in a place called "Quebrada sin Pena" near Santa Rosa de los Cofanes, in the Amazonian province of Sucumbí­os. The border province was the scene of an incursion by the Colombian military last month and the area where the Ecuadorean military recently discovered and destroyed a Farc camp. This time the patrol found eight rucksacks with combat equipment, three AK-47s, an M-16, hand grenades, bullet-proof vests, explosives and detonators.

General Gonzalo Meza, head of the Ecuadorean army's fourth division said that during the fight, two guerrillas had been detained and the rest of the group had been forced back into Colombia. At the same time another patrol along the San Miguel river arrested a group of six Ecuadoreans and a Colombian, all of whom are suspected of collaborating with the guerrilla group.

Later in the day Jarrí­n said the Farc guerrillas had been "neutralised" in Ecuadorean territory and that no Farc units were operating in Ecuador. Jarrí­n stressed that the incident was the result of guerrillas trying to infiltrate Ecuadorean territory, but they had not succeeded. He restated Ecuador's commitment to repel guerrillas, but rubbished suggestions that Ecuador was acting as the "anvil" against which the Colombian military intended to "hammer" the Farc.

Development: The US embassy in La Paz issued a statement on 23 March criticising President Evo Morales for jumping to the conclusion that the US was behind the bombs which killed two people on 21 and 22 March.

Significance: The US criticism was stern. The embassy said that President Morales's statement damaged joint efforts against the common threat of terrorism and made it difficult for the US to cooperate on a broad range of issues of interest to both countries. The US embassy also pointed out that it was too early to say whether the US citizen who apparently placed the bombs was a terrorist or had political objectives.

The investigation into this bomber, Lestat Claudius de Orleans y Montevideo, also known as Triston Jay Amero and as John Scheda, points, as the deputy interior minister, Rafael Puente said on 23 March, to him being a psychopath rather than a terrorist. Lestat Claudius wanted to see pictures of the damage he had caused and then asked how many people were killed. When he was told he said: "That is very few. I had hoped to kill 100 in the first hotel and a 100 in the second."

Lestat Claudius claims to admire Osama Bin Laden, an Islamic terrorist, and to hate President George W Bush, and names himself after a character in a vampire novel. The Bolivian investigator, Carlos Fiorilo, has already concluded that Lestat Claudius is unbalanced.

Lestat's partner, a Uruguayan woman, Alda Ribeiro Acosta, claims to be two months pregnant and said that she had nothing to do with the attacks.

Development: On 30 April Peru decided to recall its ambassador to Caracas in response to President Hugo Chávez 's "persistent and flagrant interference in the internal affairs of Peru".

Significance: Peru recalled its ambassador to Venezuela in January this year following Chávez 's apparent endorsement of the nationalist presidential candidate, Ollanta Humala. This time, both Alan Garcí­a, Humala's rival in the forthcoming second round of elections, and current President Alejandro Toledo were drawn into the dispute, meaning that should Garcí­a win relations between the two countries are likely to be fairly dismal.

In an interview with Telesur, Garcí­a described Chávez as "shameless" and said both him and Bolivia's President Evo Morales are "brats" for rejecting Peru's free trade agreement with the US. Chávez responded by calling Garcí­a a "corrupt bandit" and saying that the was condemned to defeat in the elections. "Ollanta Humala forward! Long live Ollanta Humala! Long live Peru!," he said, adding that Venezuela would withdraw its ambassador to Peru should Garcí­a win. He described Toledo and Garcí­a as "two caimans from the same water hole".

Toledo subsequently announced his decision to recall Peru's ambassador, although he did suggest it was only a temporary measure.

Development: On 4 June the coordinating assembly of high school students protesting against Chile's education system claimed the government was attempting to break up the unity of the demonstrators.

Significance: Although another national strike is planned for today (5 June), it appears unlikely to generate anywhere near the same support as last week's, when 600,000 students, teachers, and trade unionists took to the streets. The government has acceded to a number of the student's requests and claim that the remaining protests are being orchestrated by the hard left.

On 1 June the government approved the students' request for free transport to school. It also announced grants for the poorest 155,000 students to enable them to take the university entrance exam (PSU) for free and has outlined a project to reform the Ley Orgánica Constitutional de Enseñanza (Loce).

Development: Interior Minister Sabas Pretelt said in an interview published on 9 July that members of the Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia (AUC) who abide by the terms of the paramilitary peace process will not face extradition.

Significance: The government was expected to make this concession to the AUC at some point: the paramilitary peace process would have collapsed if there was a chance the AUC's leaders might be extradited to the US after handing over their weapons. However, the announcement will displease the US, which is keen for a number of the senior paramilitary chiefs to face trial in the US on charges of cocaine trafficking. Washington is particularly upset that wanted drug lords have bought their way into the AUC precisely because they thought it would be a good way of having their slate wiped clean.

It appears more likely than ever that the paramilitaries will have to face little or no punishment for their crimes. The constitutional court is about to give its final verdict on the peace and justice law (the legal framework for the peace process) and it would be a major surprise were the court not to approve the legislation in its entirety: the AUC threatened to return to arms if the court went ahead with its threat to get rid of certain aspects of the law, thereby opening the possibility of paramilitaries having to serve a meaningful spell in prison.

Pretelt is a good man to break the news of the government's capitulation to the AUC. He will be replaced as interior minister by Carlos Holguí­n on 7 August when President Alvaro Uribe begins his second term, whereupon he will become ambassador to an embassy in Europe (probably Italy) as a reward for his efforts during the president's first term.

Further doubts about the peace process were raised by the government itself on 7 July, when an official source announced that some 40% of the 30,000+ paramilitaries who have demobilised to date were not front-line fighters. At the same time, the police announced that 536 of the paramilitaries who have demobilised have since been arrested, the majority for carrying weapons and murder. A further 236 have been killed.</

Development: The hydrocarbons ministry admitted on 11 August that state energy company Yacimientos Petrolí­feros Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB) does not have sufficient funds to push ahead with nationalisation of the hydrocarbons sector.

Significance: The nationalisation of Bolivia's hydrocarbons on 1 May is the defining moment of Evo Morales' presidency to date. Three months on the hydrocarbons minister, Andrés Soliz, conceded that YPFB has made scant progress in restoring the state's control over its resources. The government has decided to suspend on a temporary basis YPFB's role in the production of oil and gas "due to a lack of resources". However, the hydrocarbons ministry also announced that it intends to acquire US$180m from the Bolivian central bank, funds which would enable YPFB to resume full involvement.

The nationalisation has so far failed in three main areas. First, the extensive restructuring of YPFB required by the 1 May government decree has yet to take place. Secondly, YPFB has failed to secure control of Bolivian energy firms privatised by previous governments. And thirdly, that the process of renegotiating contracts with the foreign companies who previously controlled the oil and gas fields appears to have stalled.

Negotiations with foreign companies such as Petrobrás of Brazil and Repsol YPF (Spanish-Argentine) were meant to be completed within six months of the nationalisation, but after three months the process has stalled. The government began to audit the interests of the various foreign companies, barely a fortnight ago, which means the half-year deadline appears all but unmeetable.

Bolivia has succeeded in agreeing a new, higher price for its gas sales to Argentina, but it cannot agree on a new price for sales to Brazil. The government has also succeeded in increasing the state's participation in the two largest gas fields, San Alberto and San Antonio, to 82%. However, the government's failure to take control of every level of the hydrocarbons sector means that such successes count for little in the grand scheme.

BRAZIL: In 2005 average wages rose for the first time since 1996 and employment increased. This helped to reduce inequality, the official statistical agency, Ibge reported. Average wages went up from R$770 a month to R$805. Average earnings in Reais are still 15% below their 1996 level.

COSTA RICA: Coffee exports in the first seven months of 2006 came to US$185m, down 3% on the same period. The 2006/07 coffee crop is likely to 2% up on the 2005/06 crop.

HAITI: The US promised to give the country US$492m in aid for social programmes in 2007.

HONDURAS: The 2007 budget will rise by 9% in 2007 to US$4.68bn.

PERU: The government abolished the flat monthly charge levied by Telefónica on its customers.  

Development: President Evo Morales of Bolivia said on 24 October that President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela had telephoned him to suggest that Bolivia should take over from Venezuela as the anti-US candidate for a seat on the UN Security Council.

Significance: Chávez and Venezuela recognise that they will not win the two-thirds majority needed to get a seat on the Security Council when voting resumes, for the 36th round, today, 25 October. The best Chávez can now hope for is to stop the US candidate, Guatemala, winning the seat. At the last vote, on 19 October, Guatemla was only 17 votes short of the 127 it needs while Venezuela was 42 shy. Bolivia, though, is not an obvious compromise candidate. The US is sceptical about the Bolivian government: the big countries in the western hemisphere (the US, Brazil and Mexico) would prefer a steadier compromise candidate, such as Uruguay or Costa Rica. 

Morales, who revealed that Chávez had telephoned him on the evening of 23 October with the suggestion, did not jump at the offer. Morales said that first the Venezuelan ambassador to La Paz called him asking him to call Chávez to discuss the suggestion. Morales nevertheless told his ambassador to the UN to take soundings to see whether Bolivia could get the 127 votes needed for a seat on the Security Council.

Bolivia did get the immediate, but guarded, endorsement of Peru, which had abstained in all the previous rounds. Peru's foreign minister, José Antonio Garcí­a Belaunde said that Peru would support Bolivia “if it emerged as the consensus candidate for Latin America and the Caribbean." What was significant about Garcí­a Belaunde's statement is that it came from Santiago where he has meetings scheduled with the Chilean foreign minister, Alejandro Foxley for today. Chile, like Peru, has abstained in the voting so far. 

Peru has dismal relations with Venezuela, which will not have been improved by the revelation on 24 October that Chávez channelled US$4m to support Ollanta Humala in the recent presidential elections. Peru, on the other hand, has traditionally had close relations with Bolivia. Chile's government is just as annoyed as Peru by Venezuela's clumsy behaviour towards it, but Chile's relations with Bolivia have historically been poor. 

Brazil, which is the only one of the hemisphere's big three to have backed Venezuela, has difficult relations with Bolivia. The Brazilian state oil company, Petrobras, has made billion-dollar investments in Bolivia's gas industry and these interests are threatened by Bolivia's nationalisation of energy. Bolivia's intellectual vice-president, Alvaro Garcí­a Linera, said, unwisely, soon after the elections last year that Brazil was Bolivia's historic enemy: President Morales has also alluded to Brazil's annexation of Bolivian territory at the beginning of the last century. 

President Hugo Chávez has yet to comment on his offer to Morales, though Venezuela's foreign minister, Nicolás Maduro, said that Venezuela would only drop its candidacy if Guatemala withdrew first. Guatemala's foreign minister, Gert Rosenthal, said that Guatemala had no intention of withdrawing and that Guatemala did not see Bolivia as a compromise candidate. Rosenthal said that the “normal thing for the lagging candidate, in this case, Venezuela, to do would be to withdraw to let the front-runner win."

Development: Deputies from the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN) and the Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD) spent the nights of 28 and 29 November in congress to prevent the other party seizing control of the podium.

Significance: The podium is where the president-elect, Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, will be inaugurated on 1 December. If the PRD controls the podium Calderón's inauguration may not happen. That is what the PAN wants to avoid. The third major party, the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI), is mischievously lobbying for the inauguration ceremony to be moved somewhere else: neither the PAN nor Calderón welcome this suggestion, though both seem prepared to accept another PRI suggestion that President Vicente Fox should not attend the inauguration. The PRD alleges that President Fox interfered in the elections to favour Calderón. 

Constitutionally, under Article 87, Calderón has to take the oath of office before congress, or if it is not in session, its standing committee. If the president-elect fails to take the oath, congress immediately has to appoint an interim president. The constitution did not envisage a situation where one of the parties in congress would try to prevent the president-elect from taking office.

The other constitutional requirement is that the session of congress at which the president elect takes the oath should be quorate. The PAN has 206 seats in the 500 seat lower chamber; the PRD and its allies have 156 so the PRI holds the balance of power with 103. 

The PRI shows no sign wanting to throw its lot in with the PRD, despite the PRI's deep unhappiness at the appointment of a PAN partisan, Francisco Ramí­rez Acuña, as interior minister. A PRI deputy, Eduardo Sánchez, summed up the position: “Like it or not, Calderón is the president-elect and should be allowed to take office." Emilio Gamboa, the PRI leader in the lower chamber, is adamant, though, that Fox should stay away: “if he attends; the situation will be aggravated even more."

Development: President Oscar Berger was prevented on 14 January from delivering his annual address to congress because of violent protests against his government's policies which took place outside the legislative building.

Significance: Some 2,000 protesters, comprising teachers, union leaders, peasants and humanitarian activists, gathered to demand that Berger tell the truth about his government's poor record in office rather than cover it up with advertising campaigns. They complained that the government had not implemented enough education, health and safety programmes. 

Gudy Rivera, a congressman from the opposition Partido Patriota, said, "The achievements which the government presents are purely cosmetic as they have failed to tackle the root problems like security and poverty." Berger has made much of the fact that the economy grew by 4.6% last year, but disturbing figures were released by the interior ministry that showed homicides increased (again) by 5.4% in 2006 to 5,629. This is an average of 15.5 a day.

The protests do not bode well for the ruling Gana party in November's general elections. The party finally designated a presidential candidate on 4 January; the former director of the state prison system, Eduardo Giammattei. However, his candidacy has been overshadowed by that of Harold Caballeros, a retired evangelical priest who might pose a challenge to the current favourite, Alvaro Colom from the Unidad Nacional de la Esperanza.

Development: On 16 February the Constituent Assembly approved a timetable for drafting a new constitution by the deadline of 6 August.

Significance: The schedule is ambitious, particularly given that it has taken the assembly six months just to agree on a voting system. According to the approved timetable, the different commissions will work on their designated part of the constitution until 30 April. From 1 May until 15 June the full assembly will meet to approve or reject the commissions' recommendations.

From 16 June until 2 July articles which are approved by a two-thirds majority will be passed on to a legal drafting committee for incorporation in the new constitution. Those articles that fail to get two-thirds support will be sent to a reconciliation commission, whose members will try to thrash out a consensus. The whole constitution will then have to be approved by a two-thirds majority.

Development: On 25 March Gustavo Larrea, the Ecuadorean interior minister, gave an interview in which he expressed his irritation at the constant comparisons between Ecuador's government and that of Venezuela.

Significance: Although President Rafael Correa describes President Hugo Chávez as a close ally, there are significant differences between the two men. A US-educated economist, Correa may have aped Chávez combative rhetoric and intolerance for the opposition, but so far he has pursued relatively orthodox policies. Ecuador has paid the interest on its foreign debt, and recently agreed to begin drilling in another Amazonian oil field, despite Correa claiming he would do no such thing during the election campaign.

“[The comparison] annoys me because they are different historical processes," Larrea said. “Each people should have the government it wants and we are a sovereign government with an Ecuadorean constituent assembly". Interestingly, Larrea also said that he did not think the political crisis between the executive and the legislature was over yet. “I do not think that what happened last week was the way to overcome the crisis; it was just another episode of the crisis. At bottom there is a political dispute between those who want a change with truth and dignity and those who do not."

Separately, Ecuador asked Colombia for more information over the weekend about the deaths of two people on the border on 21 March. According to police reports, one of the men was Ecuadorean and the other Colombia. The defence minister, Lorena Escudero, said that they were assumed to be guerrillas or linked in some way with the armed conflict in Colombia. Relatives of the dead Ecuadorean said he was a peasant farmer and not a guerrilla.

Development: Another police chief was gunned down on 28 April.

Significance: Although the opinion polls show solid support for President Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, who has launched offensives against organised crime in nine of Mexico's 32 states, the murders are continuing. On 28 April the commander of one of the state police forces in Acapulco was gunned down in a popular part of the resort.

Five days earlier gangsters had wounded a former state attorney general in another assassination attempt in the same part of the resort. In the first three months of this year 157 people have been killed in the state. Guerrero is one of the states in which the federal government is deploying troops and federal policemen.

Development: The government freed Rodrigo Granda, the unofficial foreign minister of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (Farc), on 4 June.

Significance: The government has two reasons for releasing such a senior member of the Farc. First, that the Farc might respond to such a significant gesture by releasing some of the hostages it is holding captive. Secondly, that the international community will consider Granda's release reason enough to support the government's efforts to oversee a comprehensive prisoner swap despite the its misgivings regarding Colombia caused by the parapolitical scandal.

In the second aim the government achieved instant success. France's new president, Nicolás Sarkozy, congratulated President Alvaro Uribe on Granda's release and described it as a “very important and courageous decision". Sarkozy also said that he will raise the issue at the G-8 meeting of industrialised nations, which starts tomorrow (6 June) in Germany.

However, Sarkozy's response is not a major surprise. Uribe revealed to the press that the French president had asked his Colombian counterpart to free Granda in the hope that it would encourage the Farc to release Ingrid Betancourt, the former presidential candidate with dual French nationality who was captured in 2002. Sarkozy has made significant efforts to secure Betancourt's freedom in pursuit of a dramatic achievement early in his presidency.

Both Uribe and Sarkozy hope that Granda will now lead negotiations between the Farc and the Colombian government. Unlike the other 193 Farc prisoners about to be freed by the government, Granda refused to withdraw from the guerrilla group before his release.

Development: On 8 July the Clarí­n newspaper published an investigation into the alleged corruption of Environment Secretary Romina Picolotti.

Significance: The secretary was accused by Clarí­n of hiring friends and relatives for the ministry with no relevant experience on "exorbitant" salaries. She was also accused of "unjustifiable" expenses. She allegedly "travels on private planes, has bought dozens of state-of-the-art computers", in addition to "renting properties to house hundreds of employees hired without purpose". Picolotti's brother and his girlfriend, her sister-in-law's brother and his wife, and various of her brother's school friends are all on the secretary's pay roll. During her time in office the expenses incurred by Picolotti's administration have quintupled; this year her office will, according to Clarí­n's estimates, operate on a deficit of US$5.7m.

The funds supposedly came from ArgenINTA, a public fund not subjected to the standard public administration controls. Picolotti admits that her office has hired some 350 new people during her watch. However, she argued that this was due to the creation of "many new areas" at the administration. Picolotti maintains that she is innocent of malpractice. "I am not stealing; everything is clear as water, there is nothing unusual", she said. Picolotti, a lawyer, was nominated for the post in June 2006 after representing Argentina at The Hague in the conflict with Uruguay over the construction of paper mills on the River Uruguay, their mutual border.

Development: Brazil's President Lula da Silva proposed a free-trade agreement (FTA) between the South American and Central American trade integration blocs, Mercosur and Sica, during a visit to Honduras on 7 August.

Significance: The prospective Mercosur-Sica agreement is in keeping with Brazil's policy of seeking free-trade agreements that exclude the US. The Brazilian and US governments were at odds during the negotiations of the Free-Trade Agreement for the Americas in 2005. Since then, however, the US signed a free-trade agreement with several Central American countries, the so-called Cafta-DR. Brazil, meanwhile, has sought trade agreements in the context of the Mercosur, which so far have not been so successful.

The Mercosur is comprised of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay (with Venezuela as an accession member), while the Sica is composed of Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama (with the Dominican Republic as an associate member). According to Lula, the Mercosur-Sica free-trade agreement would open new markets to participant countries. Commerce between South and Central American countries is very small in comparison to trade between the US and Central America, not only because of the Cafta-DR but also because of historical links.

In order to address this situation Lula came to Honduras with several proposals and asked Brazilian and Honduran businesses to develop new partnerships. Together with his Honduran counterpart, President Manuel Zelaya, Lula also signed several cooperation agreements, including one to stimulate the production and use of sugar cane ethanol in Honduras with Brazilian know-how. Brazil will also help the Honduran government with investments in hydroelectricity production and, through its energy company, Petrobras, will help Honduras to develop its oil refining capacities.

From Honduras Lula moved on to Nicaragua, where he stays for one day and will hold talks with President Daniel Ortega. Lula and Ortega will sign similar agreements to those signed in Honduras, to develop Nicaragua's failing hydroelectric system and boost ethanol production. From Nicaragua Lula goes to Panama and then Jamaica.

Development: Rioting in Santiago throughout the night of 11 September left one policeman dead and prompted the government to set up a special investigation on 12 September.

Significance: This is the first time that left wing commemorations of the military coup against President Salvador Allende in 1973 got seriously out of hand. One carabinero was killed, by a gunshot to the head, and at least 42 others were injured in the rioting. Most of the unrest was in poor suburbs of Santiago. Eyewitnesses said that children were often in the forefront of the riots and claimed that at least one policeman had acid thrown onto his face. At least 304 people have been arrested. The rioting is another blow to the authority of President Michelle Bachelet, whose opinion poll ratings have tanked.

President Bachelet's line is that the rioting was criminal, not political. The rioters looted schools and businesses, destroyed traffic lights and were, the authorities say, responsible for power cuts.

President Bachelet seemed shocked that rioters could stain the significance of a day "which has a meaning for all Chileans, to look at how we can live in a democracy and keep on building a more just, and at the same time, more democratic, country." She added "The government condemns the acts of violence and pillage which occurred." She and her ministers blamed "drug dealers, the underclass and the alienated" for the trouble.
The right wing Unión Democráta Independiente (UDI) immediately blamed the government for its inability to maintain law and order. Senator Hernán Larraí­n, the party's president, made the populist, but accurate, point that the government seemed more concerned about protecting government offices than in the patrolling the streets.

In a major trade union demonstration on 29 August, police were deployed mostly to protect government buildings in central Santiago and the demonstration was sent down side streets. This enraged the demonstrators who resorted to violence to which the carabineros responded: they assaulted a leftwing senator, who had criticised them, right in front of TV cameras.

The interior minister, Belisario Velasco, summoned the commander of the carabineros and the head of police intelligence to a meeting on 12 September, to discuss what had gone wrong. The government also appointed Emiliano Arias as a special investigator into the rioting.
Velasco said that he was particularly concerned at the large number of firearms the rioters used. Eyewitnesses said that some rioters had pistols with laser sights. Others had machine guns.

Velasco said that the Agencia Nacional de Inteligencia had warned the government that there would be trouble on 11 September, and admitted that the government had probably underestimated the risks: "We should have done more," he said.

Development: On 14 October Democracia Cristiana (DC), one of the main elements in the ruling Concertación alliance, called for major changes to constitution.

Significance: The changes would represent a tilt to the Left in economic policymaking. The DC, arguably the least leftwing of the four parties in Concertación, now advocates giving the state a greater role in running the economy and regulating the private sector.

The decisions were made by the DC's Fifth Ideological Congress which brought together 1,700 party members. The only issue which went to a vote was whether the party should advocate a change to the constitution to allow abortion for therapeutic reasons. The proposal was rejected.

The changes upon which the party agreedincluded: rejecting euthanasia and banning the commercialising of education (ie, private schools and universities which are managed for profit). The DC also came out in favour of converting parliament from a two-chamber operation into a unicameral one.

Soledad Alvear, the party president and a likely candidate for the Concertación nomination for the presidency, said that the change to economic policy would put more emphasis on the social side of the current social market model. In particular, the party wants changes to the way the central bank, the state banks and the Corporación de Fomento a la Producción (Corfo) operate.