MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Billionaire Piñera favourite to win Chile’s Sunday presidential election

Conservative Sebastian Piñera on the campaign trail

The latest poll published in Santiago just four days before Chileans elect their next president - confirms billionaire businessman Sebastian Piñera as the heads-on favourite to win next Sunday’s vote.

The Centre for the Study of Contemporary Reality (CERC) poll gives Piñera a strong 44% plurality in Sunday’s election, with Senator Eduardo Frei receiving 31% of the vote, maverick Dep. Marco Enríquez-Ominami (MEO) 18%, and far-left candidate Jorge Arrate 7%.

In a January run-off election, the CERC poll gives an almost insurmountable 49% to 32% lead to Piñera over Senator Frei, his mostly likely run-off contender. In a run-off against maverick MEO, Piñera scores an almost equally decisive 47 to 35% victory.

Thirty-six percent of those interviewed by the poll expressed their belief that Frei would make it into the run-off election against Piñera, while 36% thought the run-off candidate would be MEO.

Fifty percent of those polled said they would like Piñera to be the nation’s next president, with only 18% preferring Frei and 17% MEO.

The CERC poll comes on the heels of another important political poll, the Centre for Public Studies (CEP) poll, which gave Piñera 36% of the first round vote and Frei 26%.

Another poll - reported Wednesday and underwritten by the conservative daily El Mercurio - confirmed the CERC poll results. It showed Frei ahead of MEO, although they almost evenly divided votes in Chile’s most important urban areas – Santiago, Concepcion and Valparaiso. The poll also showed Piñera consolidating his lead over both Frei and MEO.

By Steve Anderson - Santiago Times