General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo (Latin American Spanish: [ˈkaɾlos iˈβaɲes ðel ˈkampo]; 3 November 1877 – 28 April 1960) was a Chilean Army officer and political figure.

In 1924, the Chilean armed forces, led by General Luis Altamirano, began the saber-rattling (ruido de sables), a protest where soldiers banged their sabers against the floor of the Congress.

Ibáñez announced his candidacy in the upcoming presidential elections, but the three main Chilean political parties (Conservative, Liberal, Radical) pressured him to desist.

Ibáñez's only opponent was the communist Elías Lafertte, who was exiled in the Juan Fernández Archipelago throughout the electoral campaign[clarification needed].

[clarification needed] Ibáñez began to exercise dictatorial powers, using rule by decree (decretos con fuerza de ley), suspending parliamentary elections, instead naming politicians to the Senate and Chamber of Deputies himself, etc.

[clarification needed] Another significant achievement of Ibáñez's first administration was the signing of the 1929 Treaty of Lima, in which Chile agreed to return the Tacna Province to Peru, which had been seized during the War of the Pacific.

Ibáñez's large public spending did nothing to alleviate the situation, and his opponents, primarily the exiled Grove and Alessandri, began to plan a comeback.

After a great wave of public unrest, Ibáñez left the country for exile, on 26 July 1931, after delegating his office to the president of the senate, Pedro Opazo, who in turn resigned in favor of the interior minister, Juan Esteban Montero.

Chile did not reach political stability until the 1932 reelection of Arturo Alessandri, whose economic policies managed to alleviate the depression[clarification needed].

Now much more of a centrist politically, Ibáñez won the support of many left-wingers by repealing the Law for the Defense of Democracy, which banned the Communist Party.

These ibañistas, most of whom were retired army officers, created the "Línea Recta" (Straight Line) group to establish a new dictatorship.

His long and often poorly defined presence of more than thirty years on the Chilean political scene (during which he often appeared to have little actual sympathy with the political goals of the groups that supported him at various times, e.g. he was too moderate to agree with the nacistas and too respectful of existing institutions to emulate Peronism successfully) produced its most significant results in the early years of his caretaker presidency in the 1920s through his efforts to develop new towns in the regions to the south of the Central Valley and to improve existing infrastructure in the South.