Chile Forum

It looks like a bunch of candidates from Marco Enríquez-Ominami's bid jumped onto the Piñera bandwagon today. 13 of them vowed to support his bid. Nice.

My bet is
Piñera 53.2
Frei 46.8

Hope so

From what I have heard in Santiago this last month, the left hate Frei and the right are not too keen on Piñera, but even the centre left may go to Piñera to see a CHANGE. The centre left don’t want a boring term (which Frei almost guarantees) so may swing in large numbers to the right. I think the right though not big fans of Piñera would never go to the left.
So:

Piñera 56%
Frei 42%
Annulled 2% (I have heard there is a spoil your ballot movement, vote for both not tear it up, if it is destroyed it will not counted as annulled)

Pinera by 53% is my call.

I think it's very, very close, too close to call. But I think 51% to 49%. I think Frei squeaks by, yes he's boring and will do little but continue Bachelet policies but her approval is at record highs. I think Pinera made a grievous error during the debate when a reporter asked him if he would ask MEO to join his government and he obviously avoided the question. But it is for the Chilean people to decide. If Pinera takes it, I think he still squeaks by 51-49. It's simply a decision of who gets MEO votes. Although MEO hasn't endorsed, he has been more strongly against Pinera. he said something like “A vote for Piñera is a step backwards and Frei is a leader from the past” Then "vote your conscience" The choice to MEO voters sounds like "backwards" or "the same"

But much more interesting than the first round. Never let it be said i don't have an opinion.

I think this is all going to come down to who is more interested in their vacation. The old rich conservatives, or the disenfranchised kids that now have lost their candidate and might not be so interested in showing up for round two to vote for either of the old stuffy dudes.

Nulls, voided, or just anyone on the left not showing up, all work in Pinera's favor no matter how you want to split statistical hairs over what "counts". The fact is it is one less vote on the left out of total eligible voters that did not vote for Frei and likly took some friends and family with them. It is the demoralization factor.

I think also the left might be a victim of their own success. They grew the middle class fairly fast over the last 20 years, and now are failing to appreciate what that new middle class wants. There are still a lot of really poor people in the country, but not as many as there was 20 years ago. Throwing more social programs targeted at a the extrema poor, when now Chile has a bigger problem of the working class and middle class poor. It is like 'thanks, most of us got a roof over our head now, can read, write, have cars, have tv, but how about better schools and a nicer roof so our kids are not poor in the next generation'. The left is still approaching most of the population as if they were starving in the streets and homeless. Chile has moved on, but the left has not.

Now before anyone starts, I understand there are still extremely poor families in Chile struggling, but the overwhelming mass of people are now above any sort of abject life or death sort of poverty. This is not a Mexico city, Guatemala city, Brazilian slum type poor. The poor in Chile go on vacations, own cars, houses, have food on the table and a table to put it on. They have access to health care, retirement accounts, credit cards and bank loans, and so on. The overwhelming majority of the poor in Chile are in much better shape than the rest of Latin America's poor. Hell, they are in better shape than many of the U.S. poor.

So this is where the right is grabbing people from the left. The old left voting middle class, are now pushed in to increasingly higher tax brackets, have families, and are all around getting older and more conservative. Those guys are the ones that are jumping ship as the left continues focuses so heavily on giving stuff to the bottom end of economic scale in Chile, and at the same time blaming the new rich for why things are still broken at the bottom. As I have said before, the left has politically cannibalized its own young.

The guys on the far right and solid middle right will never jump ship, even if they do not like Pinera. So they are safe as long as Pinera does not do something really strange to spook them before Sunday.

By the way, did anyone catch Pinera in the debate quoting Deng Xiaoping? I guess technically it was not a quote, as much as he poached the rather famious line about "who cares if a cat is black or white as long as it catches mice".

xxx

This should make it more interesting-MEO endorsed Frei

SANTIAGO, Jan 13 (Reuters) - Eduardo Frei, the candidate of Chile's ruling center-left coalition, won the endorsement of a former independent candidate on Wednesday, which could raise his hopes of beating the conservative rival tipped to win Sunday's presidential run-off.

Former film producer Marco Enriquez-Ominami had polled third in a December first round vote and missed the run-off, triggering a fierce battle between Frei and center-right billionaire Sebastian Pinera to woo his 20 percent support.

"Given the uncertainty that the right could block Chile's march toward the future, it is my responsibility to contribute what I can so it doesn't happen," Enriquez-Ominami, the son of a leftist guerrilla leader slain during General Augusto Pinochet's 1973-1990 dictatorship, told a news conference in parliament.

"So I formally declare my decision to support the people's candidate who won 29 percent of the vote on December 13," he said, referring to Frei, whom he had until now refused to endorse despite repeated appeals and concessions by the ruling coalition.

Sunday's vote is expected to be very close, and a new poll on Wednesday showed Pinera having a slight edge over Frei, a former president. Analysts have said it may be too late for an Enriquez-Ominami endorsement to tilt the balance in Frei's favor.

Enriquez-Ominami said the right, now led by Pinera, was responsible for his father's killing.

Pinera, who ranks No. 701 on the Forbes global rich list, won 44 percent in the December vote while Frei took 29.6 percent. It was the first time the right had won more votes than the left in a presidential vote since Chile returned to democracy in 1990.

A poll published by respected pollster MORI on Wednesday showed Pinera winning Sunday's run-off with 50.9 percent of the vote, against 49.1 percent for Frei -- within the survey's 3 percent margin of error.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1313013020100113



SANTIAGO -(Dow Jones)- Four days prior to Chile's runoff presidential election, former independent candidate Marco Enriquez-Ominami cast his support for ruling Concertacion coalition hopeful Eduardo Frei.

After no candidate obtained a clear majority in the mid-December election, conservative billionaire candidate Sebastian Pinera and Frei have been vying for Enriquez-Ominami's support and that of the 20% of voters who favored him in that election.

During the first-round vote, right-wing Pinera won 44%, former President Frei 30%, independent congressman Enriquez-Ominami 20% and Communist Jorge Arrate 6% of votes.

Prior to Enriquez-Ominami's announcement Wednesday that he'll support Frei on Sunday's runoff, local pollster MORI said Pinera would likely win the election with 51% of valid votes, with Frei taking 49%.

The key for either Frei or Pinera to winning Sunday's election lies in capturing the votes Enriquez-Ominami got, since the vast majority of voters who chose Arrate are already expected to vote for Frei.

"This has been a good day for Frei. Even though Pinera still has the lead, Frei now has a chance for a come-from-behind victory," political analyst Patricio Navia told Dow Jones Newswires.

If Pinera wins, he'll be the first conservative president in the South American nation following the end of General Augusto Pinochet's 17-year dictatorship in 1990.

"Marco Enriquez-Ominami's support of Frei adds more uncertainty to Sunday's election. Pinera definitely won't sleep as well the next three days as he did last night," Navia said.

-By Anthony Esposito, Dow Jones Newswires; 56-2-820-4241; anthony.esposito@ dowjones.com

http://www.nasdaq.com/aspx/stock-market ... idate-frei

In other news, MEO woke up this morning and remembered he was left wing. This was as predictable as the Avatar plot. Now the election itself is really hard to read. I don't think the motivation that led people to vote for MEO will push people to vote for Frei just because they're asked to. And no matter how his opponents try to make it so, Piñera is just not scary.

No doubt they promised him the moon if he would do it. I'll be interested in his role in Frei's govt, should Pinera fail to pull off the upset.

the basic issues and questions are the same as they were in december......what percentage of MEO's supporters will vote for pinera, or choose not to vote?

the answers don't seem to be any clearer now, the day before the election...except for the recent endorsement of frei by MEO. i still think frei will win the election, which means four more years of good old boy center left politics, as opposed to what a pinera victory would mean....four years of good old boy center right politics.

hardly a difference worth much worry....which is exactly what a lot of MEO's supporters are thinking...why bother going to the trouble to vote when your choice is between two millionaires who are deeply entrenched in the system as it is and will do very little to change anything?

CNN Chile report last night sighted a recent poll that had Pinera by 53 point something percent.

When all the news organizations start crossing their poll numbers, watch out.