MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chilean conservative presidential hopeful leads comfortably in latest opinion poll

Following twenty years of the Chilean ruling coalition, Conservative Sebastián Piñera could become the country’s next president.

Chilean Conservative businessman Sebastián Piñera continues to enjoy a lead going into the country’s December 11 presidential election, according to a poll by the Center for Studies in Contemporary Reality (CERC).

The survey, released this week, has Piñera with 37% of the vote, 15 percentage points ahead of this closest rival, Senator Eduardo Frei (22%). Dark horse candidate Marco Enriquez-Ominami is running third with 15%, followed by far-left candidates Jorge Arrate and Alejandro Navarro, 1% and centre-right Senator Adolfo Zaldivar with just a fraction of a percent.

Piñera, a former senator with the centre-right National Renovation (RN) party, is also likely to beat his rivals in a potential runoff, the CERC poll suggested.

Against Frei, who represents the governing Concertación coalition, Piñera leads 41% to 33%. The poll has the RN candidate beating Enriquez-Ominami 41% to 28%.

“I’m convinced we’re going to win this presidential election” Piñera told reporters after learning the results of the new CEC survey.

Enriquez-Ominami, a 36-year-old deputy who recently quit the Socialist Party to run as an independent, was also enthusiastic about the poll, which shows him gaining on Frei.

“We’ll go to the run-off round of voting,” he said. “It’s the same poll (company) that one month ago, had me at one percent. We didn’t exist then”.

Piñera was defeated by President Michelle Bachelet in the last presidential vote in 2005.

According to Chilean legislation the first round is scheduled on December 13. A runoff, in case neither of the candidates gets at least 50% of the vote, would take place the following November.

By Silke Steiml and Santiago Times Staff - editor@santiagotimes.cl