MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Piñera wants a ‘ladies fight’ for the coming November presidential election

Ms Matthei is a tested politician, Minister of Labour and a feared debater

Chilean president Sebastián Piñera defended the need for an only candidate in the ruling coalition for the coming presidential election of November and considered it should be a woman, suggesting the name of Labour minister Evelyn Matthei.

This week the conservative candidate Pablo Longueira who won the coalition’s primary resigned on medical reasons (depression) leaving the opposition coalition and their helmsperson Michelle Bachelet as the undisputed favourite for November.

The ruling coalition made up of UDI and Piñera’s group RN want to have the issue decided this week since only four months are left to the 17 November election and the conservatives are trailing the opposition plus the fact that the former president Bachelet has proven to be an excellent catch-all candidate.

In a television interview President Piñera suggested the coalition should have an only candidate, and called on all leaders ‘to think big’, ‘to think in Chile and in winning the November election’.

When asked if he had a candidate in mind Piñera said that UDI was thinking in the Minister of Labour, Evelyn Matthei, whom he strongly supported.

“She’s a woman with passion, strong, with charisma, so she would make a great candidate”, said Piñera. The Minister of Labour is the daughter of retired Air Force General Fernando Matthei who was a member of the original Junta with Pinochet.

Ms Matthei has been in politics since the return of democracy in Chile and is known for her strong character, including foul and insulting language when discussing with other politicians and as a child was a close friend of Michelle Bachelet who is also the daughter of an Air Force general, but who died under torture for not supporting the 1973 coup.

Following the stepping down of Longueira, Matthei consulted with leaders from UDI and talked with Piñera on the phone. However there is a possible second hopeful and that is Joaquin Lavin, who was Longueira’s head of campaign. He is a former mayor of Santiago, minister of Social Development but in January 2000 he was defeated in the run off by former President Ricardo Lagos.

Piñera was finally asked about Andres Allamand, his candidate in the primaries who lost to Longueira, ‘a great candidate, a very efficient minister’, but the president said he was inclined to reach an understanding with UDI, and Ms Matthei could be “a formidable promoter of our ideas for a modern efficient Chile”.