MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chilean conservatives more confident of winning presidential election

Sebastián Piñera leads comfortably in vote intention for December election

Chilean conservative presidential candidate Sebastián Piñera announced Sunday he will submit a proposal to Chile's government suggesting that the voter registration period for December's presidential elections be extended by around one month.

Current law requires voter registration must occur up to 90 days before the Dec. 13 election, with the deadline arriving at the beginning of next week.

“There is no reason to close the electoral registers in 10 days' time,” he said. “We can close them in a month and give the people of our country, especially young people, a new opportunity to sign up, get involved, and be part of our democracy. It is in the government's hands to give our young people an opportunity, and I ask the president and government ministers to not shut this door.”

Piñera's voter registration proposal could reflect a surge in confidence on behalf of the Chile's rightist politicians following last Thursday's Centre of Public Studies (CEP) poll, which gave Piñera a nine-point lead over his closest rival, centre-left governing Concertación coalition candidate and former president Senator Eduardo Frei.

Frei responded to Piñera's proposal on Sunday, saying he had “no problem” with extending the deadline. He also said he would publicly detail his presidential policy proposals this week, which would be centred on “education and improving social protection.”

Meanwhile, former centre-left presidential candidate and Organization of American States (OAS) Secretary General José Miguel Insulza highlighted the possibility of victory for Piñera to the Argentine press last Thursday, saying, “The right has the chance of winning the presidency in this country . . . and this is not because the Concertación is weaker, but because of the many errors it has committed”.

The Concertación has suffered setbacks partly as a result of the candidature of 36-year-old progressive candidate Marco Enríquez-Ominami, a former Socialist Party deputy who left the party in June in order to run as an independent candidate.

Enríquez-Ominami's decision to run against Frei has taken votes away from the official Concertación candidate and caused infighting within the coalition.

Insulza went on to detail his views on the Concertación in an interview with Chilean daily El Mercurio on Sunday, saying the coalition had to make “a much greater effort” and that its principal mistake in the election campaign had been not having “mobilized all of its available resources.”

Insulza also called on Frei, who he described as “not a great communicator, but a great achiever” to set out “a clear message of what his program priorities are” and “mobilize his troops” in order to take the election to a second-round run-off and prevent Piñera from winning outright in the first round.

By Chris Noyce - Santiago Times