| Submit your comments on this article |
| Caribbean-Latin America |
| Chile: Billionaire beat leftists, now faces runoff |
| 2009-12-14 |
| Right-wing billionaire Sebastian Pinera beat three leftists in Sunday's presidential election but failed to obtain a majority, setting up a runoff against a veteran of the coalition that has ruled Chile for two decades of democracy. With 60 percent of the vote counted, the Harvard-educated Pinera had 44 percent to 30 percent for the ruling center-left coalition's candidate, former President Eduardo Frei. Socialist Rep. Marco Enriquez-Ominami, who broke away from the ruling coalition in a dispute with Frei, had 19 percent, and Jorge Arrate, representing a Communist-led bloc, had 6 percent, according to nationwide results. The trend was expected to roughly hold through Sunday's vote count, putting Pinera and Frei in a Jan. 17 runoff election where the key question will be whether leftists can unify to fend off the most moderate candidate Chile's right has ever had. A runoff win by Pinera, 60, would give Chile its first right wing government since Gen. Augusto Pinochet's 1973-1990 dictatorship and would mark a tilt to the right in a region where leftists have won most recent elections. The government's general secretary, Jose Antonio Viera-Gallo, immediately called on supporters of the other leftist candidates to come together, saying that Sunday's vote makes it clear that the people want Frei in the second round. Stability and experience are selling points for Frei, 67, who governed Chile from 1994 to 2000. "We don't want leaps into the unknown, nor do we want to return to the past. We want a government that worries about the people," he said after voting. "We don't believe that the power of the market and money should have priority over a society." But many voters are fed up with having the same government throughout 19 years of democracy following Pinochet. Promising change, Pinera and Enriquez-Ominami challenged the ruling coalition like never before. Chile's economy, negligible inflation and stable democracy are the envy of Latin America. Booming copper revenues and prudent fiscal policies have helped the government reduce poverty from 45 percent in 1990 to 13 percent today, raising per capita annual income to $14,000 in the nation of 17 million. But a huge wealth gap between rich and poor and a chronically underfunded education system have many voters feeling more must be done to redistribute Chile's copper wealth. A study by the World Bank several years ago showed that the poorest 10 percent of Chileans benefit from only 1.3 percent of government revenues, while the richest 10 percent benefit from 40 percent. Pinera ranked No. 701 with $1 billion on the Forbes magazine world's richest list. He built his fortune bringing credit cards to Chile, and his investments include Chile's main airline, most popular football team and a leading TV channel. He has promised to bring the same entrepreneurial spirit to governing Chile, and expressed optimism after voting Sunday, saying "better times are coming." Some analysts predict a very tight vote in January, estimating that as much as a third of Enriquez-Ominami's supporters will defect to Pinera, even though his alliance of right-wing parties once helped sustain the dictatorship. "The second round is going to be similar to the last two presidential elections - very tight, with the only difference being that for the first time, the opposition candidate has the advantage," said Ricardo Israel, a political scientist at the University of Chile. Chileans also elected 120 representatives and half of the 38 senators on Sunday. |
| Posted by:Steve White |