Runoff election needed in Chile

Conservative Sebastian Piñera won Sunday’s presidential election in Chile but did not gain enough votes to prevent a runoff.

The billionaire businessman received 44% of the vote, about 6% shy of the cutoff needed to avoid a second round next month. In vying to become Chile’s first civilian conservative leader since the late strongman Augusto Pinochet ceded power, Piñera will have to face ruling the ruling Concertacion candidate and ex-president Eduardo Frei.

The big surprise of Sunday’s election was the strong showing of independent candidate Marco Enríquez-Ominami who received 20% of the vote. Enríquez-Ominami split from the Concertacion and appealed towards marginalized younger voters. Ultimately nearly one of ten 18 to 29-year-old Chileans voted, yet yesterday’s first round may be a watershed election according to Bloggings by Boz:

No matter who wins, the Concertacion's continued existence is at risk. Even a Frei victory will only prolong the inevitable. The political coalition that formed to defeat a dictatorship can't fight Pinochet forever. For a generation whose political lives were defined by that fight, it's hard for them to accept that the next generation is not. If the old parties can't figure out how to move forward, as we saw in this election, they're going to leave space open for those who will.

On a related note, one of Pinochet’s grandsons lost in his attempt for a legislative seat. Rodrigo García Pinochet finished in a distant third after being rejected by the local leftist and rightist parties.

Image- AP (“Sebastian Pinera, presidential candidate of Chile's opposition coalition, shows his inked thumb and his ID card after voting in general elections in Santiago, Sunday, Dec. 13, 2009.”)
Online Sources- The Telegraph, Bloggings by Boz, AS/COA, AP, New York Times