Piñeragate

Piñeragate, also known as Kiotazo, was a political scandal in Chile that unfolded on August 23, 1992. It centered on the broadcast of a secretly recorded telephone conversation aired live on Megavisión, a private television channel. The recording featured Sebastián Piñera—then a senator and prospective candidate in the 1993 presidential election—conspiring against his political rival, deputy Evelyn Matthei.

Sebastián Piñera (left) and Evelyn Matthei in 2009. Both were members of National Renewal and were competing for the party's 1993 presidential nomination when the scandal unfolded

Both Piñera and Matthei were prominent members of the right-wing National Renewal (RN) party and were competing for the presidential nomination of the Union for Progress coalition. The recording was played on the political program A eso de..., hosted by businessman and Megavisión president Ricardo Claro, who broadcast it using a Kioto-brand cassette player—giving the episode its alternative name, Kiotazo. In the recording, Piñera was heard asking his associate Pedro Pablo Díaz to influence the program's moderators in order to discredit Matthei and impede her political advancement.

The scandal forced both candidates out of contention for the nomination. On November 7, 1992, Matthei publicly acknowledged that she had leaked the recording, and she subsequently withdrew from the presidential race before resigning from National Renewal several months later. The party ultimately chose an alternative candidate for the 1993 election.

Despite the controversy, Piñera went on to serve as President of Chile for two non-consecutive terms (2010–2014 and 2018–2022). Matthei remained active in the National Congress, ran as the coalition's presidential candidate in 2013 and 2025, and served as a cabinet minister during Piñera's first administration.

Background

By 1992, both Sebastián Piñera and Evelyn Matthei were rising stars within National Renewal and were competing to secure the party's nomination for the 1993 presidential election. Both were considered unconventional figures within the party: neither had a long history of internal party service, and each had reached prominence relatively quickly. Their rivalry became increasingly sharp as the primary contest intensified.

Piñera was a senator with significant business interests and national name recognition. Matthei was a deputy and the daughter of a prominent military figure. Their competition for the support of the right-wing Union for Progress coalition created internal tensions within National Renewal.

Public revelation

On August 23, 1992, the political television program A eso de..., broadcast live on the private channel Megavisión, became the setting for a dramatic political confrontation. Ricardo Claro, the businessman who presided over the channel and hosted the program, announced that he had received a recorded tape earlier that day from a man he did not know. Claro played the recording on-air using a Kioto-brand cassette player—a detail that gave the episode its popular nickname, Kiotazo.

I have received some quite serious information that the independence of this program may be threatened. You know that I receive a lot of information, which comes in the most incredible ways, without me even asking for it. Today, after lunch, I received a man I didn't know. He told me, "You pride yourself on being very independent, but there are people at your channel who are intervening," and he handed me a recorded tape of an apparently telephonic conversation between Jorge Andrés Richards' friend, Pedro Pablo Díaz, and Senator Sebastián Piñera. On that tape, the voice that appears to be Sebastián Piñera's tells Pedro Pablo Díaz, "You have to talk to Jorge Andrés Richards so that Evelyn Matthei is treated in a certain way, asked about divorce, what her position is on divorce, put her in evidence that she changes her opinion just like her father." Pedro Pablo Díaz, who is a Coca-Cola executive that I know, replies, "Look, I'll talk to the 'pelao' (Jorge Andrés Richards)." I brought the recording here. I apologize to the audience because the recording is not the best. This device is very bad, but also because there are a series of words that are not salon-appropriate. Nonetheless, I think it's interesting to know this...

— Ricardo Claro, A eso de..., August 23, 1992

In the recording, Piñera and Díaz discussed tactics for undermining Matthei in a televised debate. Their strategy centered on raising the topic of divorce—a subject expected to expose her as inconsistent, given her public identification with conservative Catholicism. Piñera summarized the goal in characteristically blunt terms:

The idea is to elegantly try to leave her like a cabrita chica, you know, clueless, like she's stumbling in the dark without any firmness, do you understand me or not?

— Sebastián Piñera

Piñera had been invited to appear on the program that evening but was off-camera when Claro played the tape. After a commercial break, he returned to the studio, acknowledged that the voice was his, and accepted responsibility for the conversation while objecting to what he characterized as an act of espionage.

Aftermath

Resignation of A eso de... staff

The immediate fallout from the broadcast extended to the program itself. On Sunday, August 30, 1992—one week after the scandal broke—host Jaime Celedón and panelists Jorge Andrés Richards, Héctor Riesle, Pilar Molina, and Tomás Jocelyn-Holt resigned on-camera. The program was subsequently discontinued.

Army telephone surveillance

The scandal prompted wider questions about political surveillance in Chile. In September 1992, journalist Santiago Pavlovic interviewed an anonymous Army intelligence agent for TVN. The agent confirmed that the Army had been intercepting telephone calls from members of political parties across the political spectrum.

Piñera's disclosures

On November 1, 1992, in an interview with journalist Raquel Correa published in El Mercurio, Piñera confirmed that members of National Renewal had prior knowledge that the tape would be broadcast—a claim that directly contravened a party order prohibiting discussion of the episode:

It was known what would happen on the program A eso de..., based on testimonies, evidence, background information, and acknowledgments. And ac-knowl-edg-ments. There are people who have admitted to me that they heard it.

— Sebastián Piñera, El Mercurio, November 1, 1992

Matthei's confession and withdrawal

On November 7, 1992, Evelyn Matthei held a press conference at which she publicly acknowledged her role in the scandal. She announced her withdrawal from the presidential pre-candidacy and claimed that the tape had been delivered to her by an "amateur radio operator" she did not know. A few days later, the Chilean Army released a statement indicating that Captain Fernando Diez, an officer in a telecommunications unit of the armed forces, had confessed to recording the conversation and personally delivering it to Matthei on his own initiative.

National Renewal's response

In a 2001 interview, RN legislator Alberto Espina reflected on the institutional failures that contributed to the scandal, arguing that the party had erred in allowing two politically inexperienced candidates to compete for the nomination without adequate vetting:

The fault is ours: it was bad for the party that Evelyn and Sebastián rose without going through the test of whiteness, and we allowed it. They entered through the window and I don't criticize them for that: the mistake is ours. We elevated two people without a party history, who did not burn each stage one by one. Neither of them was able to garner the support of at least a third of their peers in Congress. The lack of institutionalism was so great that neither of them had the ability to resign: something that Jarpa did with Büchi in the past presidential elections. Now, they don't do it because they are bad people. The political concept of Evelyn and Sebastián is pure efficiency... It's the world of business, without mercy. Where the competition is strong.

— Alberto Espina

As a result of the scandal, National Renewal passed over both Piñera and Matthei and selected independent lawyer and businessman Manuel Feliú as its 1993 presidential candidate.

Matthei's party change

In 1993, Matthei left National Renewal. In 1999, she joined the Independent Democratic Union.

Cultural impact

The scandal generated a notable pop-culture footnote. In 1992, the retail chain Supertiendas ABC (now Abcdin) aired a television commercial that parodied the incident. In the advertisement, a customer who appears to be a spy enters an ABC store and purchases a Kioto-brand radio recorder, asking the salesman to be discreet. The salesman responds by innocently asking whether it was a Kioto radio recorder the customer wanted to buy.

Legacy

Despite the damage the scandal caused to both politicians' short-term ambitions, both Piñera and Matthei went on to significant careers. Piñera was elected President of Chile twice, serving from 2010 to 2014 and from 2018 to 2022. Matthei remained in the National Congress and became the right-wing coalition's presidential candidate in the 2013 and 2025 elections. The two politicians maintained cordial relations throughout; Matthei served as Minister of Labor and Social Welfare during Piñera's first administration.

External links

• Supertiendas ABC "Kiotazo" commercial (1992) on YouTube