Chile's Presidential Elections: Pinera Easily Comes Out on

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 SANTIAGO 001208 SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A 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 SANTIAGO 00001208 002 OF 002 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