Posted on 01/17/2010 2:52:11 PM PST by nickcarraway
Conservative billionaire Sebastian Pinera won Chile's presidential election Sunday, ending two decades of center-left rule in Latin America's most stable economy.
With ballots counted at 60.3 percent of polling stations, Pinera had 51.87 percent of the vote and his leftist rival, former President Eduardo Frei, quickly conceded defeat.
The victory by Pinera, a Harvard-educated airline magnate, marks a shift to the right in South America, a region dominated by leftist rulers from Venezuela to Argentina, although no major changes to economic policy are expected.
Many Chileans were disenchanted with the ruling center-left "Concertacion" coalition that has governed the world's top copper producer since the end of Gen. Augusto Pinochet's 1973-1990 dictatorship.
Critics say the government could have made better use in recent years of billions of dollars in copper boom savings. They are also fed up that an old guard dominates politics.
Pinera, ranked No. 701 on Forbes' global list of the world's richest individuals, won 44 percent in the December 13 first-round vote, while Frei took 29.6 percent.
Pinera, 60, who made his fortune introducing credit cards to Chile and has a major stake in flagship airline LAN
benefited from divisions in the ruling coalition.
He has also sought to distance himself from the bloody legacy of Pinochet's rule, when more than 3,000 people were killed or "disappeared" and about 28,000 people were tortured, and has reached out to the large middle class.
He campaigned promising to give Chile's state-owned enterprises an overhaul to boost efficiency, create a million jobs and boost economic growth to an average 6 percent a year. The economy contracted in 2009 in its first recession in a decade.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
“Conservative” means different things to different people in different places of coourse.
Well... it’s true, but he was really the best choice on the ballot.
I hope he does very well
Looks like we’re having a hard swing back to the right...way to go Chile.
Hope that his politics are better than his financial philosophy (introducing credit cards to anyone is like giving beer and car keys to teenage boys). At least Tranquilidad la Financiera is in print, just gotta get it to the southern cone...
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