Posted on 12/13/2009 10:31:57 AM PST by Steelfish
Chile Appears Set To Elect A Conservative Billionaire businessmen Sebastian Pinera is expected to win the most votes in an election to choose highly popular President Michelle Bachelet's successor. A runoff is likely.
An election worker carries voting materials at a polling station ahead of general elections in Santiago. Conservative Sebastian Pinera is considered the frontrunner against former President Eduardo Frei. Incumbent President Michelle Bachelet cannot run because of term limits. (Carlos Espinoza / Associated Press / December 12, 2009)
By Chris Kraul December 13, 2009
Reporting from Santiago, Chile - As Chileans vote today for the first time since the death of dictator Augusto Pinochet, analysts say the expected victory of a conservative billionaire says more about voters' craving for better education and infrastructure than a return to authoritarian days.
Sebastian Pinera, a Harvard-educated economist who owns a TV station, a soccer team and a chunk of the LAN-Chile airline, is projected to get the highest number of votes but probably not the 50%+1 he needs to avoid a runoff.
Pinera faces former President Eduardo Frei, the standard-bearer of the ruling Concertacion coalition, and Socialist lawmaker Marco Enriquez-Ominami in his bid to succeed highly popular President Michelle Bachelet, who is barred by the constitution from seeking reelection.
Although a generation has passed since Pinochet was in power, signs of public loathing are still evident. Eight thousand supporters and mourners turned out for the reburial this month of the remains of Victor Jara, a popular folk singer who was tortured and killed by Pinochet's regime shortly after the 1973 coup that toppled leftist President Salvador Allende.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
How about we wait and see who decides what the final vote count might be.
“They say the place is buzzin’ with optimism and dreams of capitalistic liberty.”
Yeah if I strain I can still remember those good old days here.
Lets get real here.
The Chiliean Left confirmed the Pinochet Revolution.
It slowly eliminated appointed Senators for Life but kept the Pinochet Constitution.
It added a small welfare state to the Free Market low tarrifs private pension policies of Pinochet’s Chicago Boys.
The Right in Chile is not campaigning for a radical shift to the Right. Therefore it will not have a mandate for massive changes.
It will have a mandate to shift moderately to the Right
There will modest tax reductions, modest reduction is business regualtion,moderate trimming of the welfare state, and some common sense educational reforms.
And it will confirm Chile’s democracy with a 2nd shift in power.
Since my visit there in 2005, Chile remains at the top of my list of safe havens when the $h!t hits the fan here.
In the last year I have heard of many Americans buying second homes abroad in places I never would have thought about before.
I have heard that Chile’s police are unusual for Latin America in that they are considered honest and not corrupt.
[We have acquaintances who have been working in Chile for almost two years. They say the place is buzzin’ with optimism and dreams of capitalistic liberty.]
Good to know. I’m looking for a bug out country.
You heard correctly. Offer a cop a bribe there and you will end up in jail.
Chile is a nice country. It is quite clean, the public utilities are stable and the violent crime rate used to be quite low. Your pocket might be picked but a mugging is rare.
New York University political scientist Patricio Navia said some of Pinera’s views, including advocacy of gay rights and a willingness to participate in an “abortion dialogue,” doesn’t fit the mold for most conservative politicians. Abortion is outlawed in Chile, and Bachelet’s support for a “morning after” pill has run into opposition.
“The media always compare him to [Italian Prime Minister Silvio] Berlusconi, but you could just as easily make the case he’s a Chilean Michael Bloomberg,” Navia said, a reference to the moderate Republican mayor of New York. “He’s essentially promising to do the same as the center-left coalition but with more efficiency and less corruption.”
So much for the “Conservative”, if I were Chilean, I would long for the days of Presidento Pinoche.
Very informative. I guess its Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle Dum in Chile
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