The history of National Renewal begins in 1987, when Chile was preparing for the 1988Plebiscite that would determine the continuity of rule of Augusto Pinochet who had been in power since the coup of 1973. The party was founded in the same year on April 29 with 351 founding members. In this way, National Renewal was the first political party to form in Chile after the lifting on the ban of political parties that had been established after the coup; by December of that year, 61,167 members, led by Andrés Allamand, had joined. The principal idea that the party proclaimed was to generate an environment of calm during the return of democracy. The party supported UDI candidate Joaquín Lavín as the sole Alliance candidate in the 1999/2000 presidential elections, who went on to obtain 47.5% of the votes in the first round, but was subsequently defeated in the second round by Ricardo Lagos.
During early 2005, the party initially supported Lavín to again run as the sole candidate of the Alliance in the presidential election of that year. However, in face of Lavin's declining opinion poll numbers, Sebastián Piñera announced his candidacy as the National Renewel candidate thus ensuring that the Alliance have two candidates for the election. In the first round on 11 December, Piñera obtained 25.4% of the vote which was enough to send him to the run-off on 15 January2006 with Michelle Bachelet. Obtaining 46.5% of the vote, Piñera was defeated by Bachelet.
