Cablegate: Chile's Presidential Elections: Pinera Easily Comes Out On
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RHEHAAA/NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL WASHINGTON DC
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TAGS: PGOV ECON CI
SUBJECT: Chile's Presidential Elections: Pinera Easily Comes Out on
Top in First Round, Will Face Frei in Second Round
1. (U) Summary: Preliminary results of Chile's December 18
election show opposition candidate Sebastian Pinera firmly leading
Chile's presidential election, but without the greater than 50%
support necessary to avoid a runoff election. According to the
early results, Pinera will face Concertacion candidate Eduardo Frei
in a second round presidential election, to be held January 17.
Chileans will be closely watching the final results--likely not to
be available until late Sunday night or early Monday morning--to
see how large Pinera's lead is and if Frei has a chance of beating
him in the second round. End Summary.
2. (U) Preliminary election results, based on reports from 59% of
polling stations, show opposition candidate Sebastian Pinera
leading Chile's first round presidential election with 44.2% of the
vote, over Concertacion candidate and former president Eduardo Frei
with 30.5%. Independent progressive candidate Marco
Enriquez-Ominami looks set to finish in third place with 19.4%,
while leftist candidate Jorge Arrate currently has 6%.
3. (SBU) Sebastian Pinera and Eduardo Frei were widely expected to
advance to the second round presidential election, with most
speculation surrounding how wide a lead Pinera would enjoy heading
into the January 17 runoff vote. (Note: Chilean law requires that
one candidate secure a majority of votes to be elected president,
frequently leading to runoff presidential elections. End Note.)
Frei campaign insiders had told Poloff that if Frei could remain
within 10 points of Pinera, the second round would be very tight,
while if Pinera's lead reached 14 points or more, the opposition
candidate would be very hard to beat. If Pinera retains his
current lead of roughly 14 percentage points once final results are
available, his performance will call into question whether Frei has
a chance of beating him in the second round.
4. (U) Voters also cast ballots for all members of the lower house
of congress, the Chamber of Deputies, and half of the members of
the Senate. Results for many of these races are not yet available,
and will be reported septel.
A Historical Election
-------------------------
5. (SBU) This year's presidential election is both historic and
the most uncertain in recent Chilean history. The center-left
Concertacion coalition, made up of the Christian Democrat,
Socialist, Party for Democracy, and Radical Social Democrat
parties, has held the presidency continuously since Chile's return
to democracy in 1990. An eventual win by opposition candidate
Sebastian Pinera would see Chile's center-right taking power for
the first time in twenty years. Sixteen percent of voters were
said to be undecided in advance of the election--the highest
percentage since the Pinochet regime. Pinera, a business tycoon
ranked number 701 on Forbes' list of wealthy individuals, is a
centrist who has run an excellent campaign, in contrast to the
lackluster and uncoordinated effort of his rival, Eduardo Frei.
Marco Enriquez-Ominami, a 36-year-old parliamentarian with a tragic
past and some fairly radical political ideas, ran a surprisingly
effective independent campaign.
Next Steps for the Pinera and Frei Campaigns
--------------------------------------------- --------------
6. (SBU) Much speculation has surrounded the question of how much
support President Bachelet and her cabinet are likely to give
Eduardo Frei in the final stage of his campaign. The extremely
popular president was not associated with Frei's campaign efforts
for much of the early and middle stages of the campaign. Since
late October, Bachelet and her cohort have been more actively
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campaigning for the Concertacion candidate. Bachelet's very
popular mother, Angela Jeria, began publicly campaigning for Frei a
few weeks ago, while Women's Affairs Minister Laura Albornoz
resigned from her position in October to campaign for Frei full
time. Press reports suggest that current Bachelet spokesperson
Carolina Toha and communications director Juan Carvajal are likely
to resign from their positions on Monday, December 14, so that Toha
can assume leadership of the Frei campaign and Carvajal can serve
as their communications director. Finance Minister Andres Velasco,
the most popular member of Bachelet's cabinet, has so far refused
to address intense speculation as to whether he would also resign
to support Frei full-time. However, if campaign observers believe
that Frei's gap behind Pinera will be very difficult to overcome,
members of Bachelet's cabinet are less likely to step down to
support Frei's campaign.
7. (SBU) On the Pinera side, the opposition candidate is expected
to name Joaquin Lavin, a former presidential candidate from the
conservative Independent Democratic Union (UDI) party, to lead his
second round campaign. In addition, Pinera campaign staff have
told us that Pinera's slogan for the second round will be "Join the
Change" (Sumate el Cambio), an echo of Joaquin Lavin's 1999
presidential campaign slogan. (Note: The opposition Alianza
coalition consists of the center-right National Renewal (RN) party,
which Pinera hails from, and the staunchly conservative and
Catholic UDI party. While there have been fewer tensions between
the two parties than in past elections, recently the press has
reported UDI complaints of being left out of the campaign and
Pinera support for RN candidates facing UDI rivals. End Note.)
Voting Conditions--Free and Fair
------------------------------------------
8. (U) Press accounts reported that voting was orderly throughout
the country. Most voting booths opened between 7 am and 8 am, and
stayed open for nine hours or until everyone registered to vote at
that booth had done so. Citizen election workers, called "vocales
de la mesa," ran the voting booths, while military personnel
guarded polling stations and police directed traffic. Political
party representatives were allowed to be present at voting
stations, and many attended the vote count, conducted at each
voting booth when the polls closed. In Chile, voter registration
is voluntary, but all registered voters are legally required to
vote. Men and women cast ballots in separate polling stations.
9. (U) The press covered the voting extensively during the day,
drawing attention to the few irregularities which occurred, such as
voters secretly taking pictures of their own votes with cell phones
(many of which were later posted online), a small number of
citizens who refused to serve as election workers, and a group of
people outside one polling station urging voters to nullify their
ballots. As polls closed, TV and radio stations provided live
coverage of the vote count in some districts. Chileans also
provided a constant stream of election news via Twitter, reporting
long lines, an incident in which a faulty elevator trapped six
voters inside, hot temperatures causing health problems for some
voters, and a voter who died of a heart attack at a polling
station, among other items.
SIMONS