by Keith Richmond
There will be a run-off between Sebastián Piñera, the centre-right candidate, and Eduardo Frei, the centre-left candidate, on January 17 to determine who will be the next president of Chile.
Mr Piñera, a conservative billionaire businessman who lost to the popular outgoing socialist president Michelle Bachelet in 2005, won the first round of the country’s presidential election on Sunday, but without the majority needed to avoid a run-off. He got 44 per cent of the votes, below the 50 per cent required for a first round victory.
He will now face Mr Frei, the candidate of the ruling centre-left Concertación coalition, and who was president from 1994-2000, in the second and final round.
If Mr Piñera wins, it would put the conservatives back in power in Chile after 20 years of centre-left rule. Although he has a big lead over Mr Frei, who got 30 per cent of the vote, victory for the right – for the first time since General Pinochet relinquished power in 1990 – is by no means assured.
Marco Enríquez-Ominami, a former film director running as an independent, got 20 per cent of the vote while Jorge Arrate, a veteran socialist running with the support of the Communist Party, took 6 per cent.
The success of these two candidates split the left-wing vote; if voters now swing behind Mr Frei he could yet see off Mr Piñera, a member of the National Renewal party who owns a television channel, a stake in Colo-Colo, Chile’s most successful football club, and who has many other business interests in the country
