17 September 2009

On Chile's Upcoming Presidential Election.

THE ECONOMIST/
"As campaigning formally got under way on September 15th, the latest CEP poll gave Sebastián Piñera, the businessman candidate of the conservative opposition, 37% of the vote. Eduardo Frei, a Christian Democrat who was Chile’s president from 1994-2000 and is the official Concertación candidate, trailed on 28%, while Marco Enríquez-Ominami, a dissident Socialist congressman standing as an independent, had 17%. The past four presidential elections mirrored the result of a plebiscite in 1988 in which 56% of voters backed a return to democracy, whereas 44% wanted General Augusto Pinochet’s 16-year dictatorship to continue. Will this one break the most stable political pattern in Latin America?"