CHILE'S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: ALL BETS ON PINERA

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 SANTIAGO 000943 SIPDIS STATE FOR WHA/BSC, WHA/CCA, INR/B, WHA/EPSC, S/P STATE PLEASE PASS TO USTR KKALUTKIEWICZ, EBRZYTWA, JKEMP, CSMOTHERS COMMERCE FOR DPAREKH, KMANN LABOR FOR ILAB--CGAY STATE PLEASE PASS TO FEDERAL RESERVE TOM CONNORS TREASURY FOR BLINDQUIST PENTAGON FOR OSD--MLENIHAN AMEMBASSY BRIDGETOWN PASS TO AMEMBASSY GRENADA AMEMBASSY OTTAWA PASS TO AMCONSUL QUEBEC AMEMBASSY BRASILIA PASS TO AMCONSUL RECIFE E.O. 12958: DECL: 2019/12/17 TAGS: PGOV ECON CI SUBJECT: CHILE'S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION: ALL BETS ON PINERA REF: A. SANTIAGO 755; B. SANTIAGO 867 CLASSIFIED BY: Paul Simons, Ambassador, State, US Embassy Santiago; REASON: 1.4(B) ¶1. (C) Summary: Days after the December 13 first round presidential election, the picture for center-left presidential candidate Eduardo Frei is bleak. The former president, who in 1993 was elected to his first term by the largest margin in Chilean history, this time received 29.6% of the vote--the lowest percentage ever for a Concertacion presidential candidate. With just a month until the runoff election, frontrunner Sebastian Pinera is attempting to woo voters who backed third-place finisher Marco Enriquez-Ominami while his advisors plan for a presidential transition and Pinera's first 100 days in office. Meanwhile, the Frei camp struggles to find room for optimism and to define a way forward. End Summary. ¶2. (U) Final results from the December 13 first round presidential election are: --Sebastian Pinera, center-right Alianza coalition: 44.0% --Eduardo Frei, center-left Concertacion coalition: 29.6% --Marco Enriquez-Ominami, independent leftist: 20.1% --Jorge Arrate, "Allendista socialist" running on a Communist/Humanist ticket: 6.2% The top two finishers, Pinera and Frei, will face each other in a January 17 runoff election. Frustration, Resignation, Disbelief, Denial: Reactions from the Frei Camp -------------- -------------- -------------- ¶3. (C) The Concertacion reaction to Frei's poor showing began when polls closed Sunday night, as observers--who were displeased by Pinera's 12 point advantage after the first, partial vote count--were shocked when the gap widened by two points in the subsequent count. And things only got worse. Chileans woke up to Monday morning headlines showing that Frei received less than 30% of the vote--a startling outcome for a former president and the candidate of a coalition that has ruled for nearly 20 years. Frei's 29.6% final vote tally is, psychologically, much worse than the 32% he had at the beginning of the vote count (with 13% of polling stations) or the 30% he had after the second round of results (based on 60% of polling stations) were released. Indeed, leading Chilean newspapers (which tend to be politically conservative) described the result as "Concertacion's darkest day" and highlighted that this was the worst performance ever by a Concertacion presidential candidate. ¶4. (C) President Bachelet appears to have decided to maintain her distance from Frei, rather than put her full weight behind his campaign. While her cabinet-level spokesperson, Carolina Toha, resigned on Monday as expected to lead the Frei campaign, no other ministers followed. Observers had expected Bachelet's active participation in this last stage of the campaign, unless Frei's election seemed like a lost cause. So Bachelet's apparent decision to root for Frei from the sidelines both reflects Frei's poor prospects and is likely to further hurt his chances. Concertacion insider Enrique Correa pulled no punches during a December 16 SANTIAGO 00000943 002 OF 003 meeting with the Ambassador saying that a Frei win is "not impossible, but very difficult" and adding "it also matters how we lose," a reference to his hope that Pinera's victory margin on January 17 will not be overwhelming. Jubilation in the Pinera Campaign -------------- ¶5. (SBU) Not surprisingly, Pinera supporters are overjoyed at Sunday's results, which were in line with their most optimistic models. Many Pinera observers consider their candidate to be essentially unbeatable now. Indeed, part of the conservative campaign strategy for the final month of campaigning is to paint an aura of invincibility around Pinera--a tactic the team tested on Monday when Pinera was presented with a model of La Moneda, the presidential palace, during a campaign rally. The ever-organized conservative campaign also ran full-page ads in major newspapers on Monday, thanking voters for their support. The candidate is spending this week campaigning in areas where independent progressive candidate Marco Enriquez-Ominami, who finished third and thus does not have a place in the runoff election, was particularly strong. Emphasizing his theme of "change," Pinera has temporarily eschewed well-known conservative politicians (including recently elected members of Congress) and is surrounding himself with younger, less public politicians, symbolizing a new generation of political leadership. ¶6. (C) Expectations of success are so high in the Pinera campaign that preparations for a potential Pinera administration, which were already underway before the first round, have now reached fever pitch. Pinera foreign policy advisor Rodrigo Yanez told POLOFF that the teams of programmatic advisors, known collectively as Grupo Tantauco, have increased the pace of their work. Their current focus is not just on the transition, but beyond. Should Pinera win on January 17, each team hopes to present the president-elect with not just a plan for the transition, but also a blueprint for action in their programmatic area during first 100 days of the Pinera administration. (Comment: Although far more prepared than their Concertacion rivals, at times the Pinera camp has not been able to live up to their own spin. After a well-publicized event in April when the 36 Grupo Tantauco teams turned over binders with their policy platforms to Pinera, Yanez privately admitted to POLOFF that some of the policy teams had not functioned well, and some of the binders so prominently displayed were in fact empty or nearly so. End Comment.) Two Potential Strategies for Frei: A New Vision, or Going Negative Against Pinera -------------- -------------- -------------- ¶7. (C) Frei faces a steep uphill battle in the last stage of the presidential campaign. The former president has been steadily losing support for months. In polls released in June, September, and November by the well-regarded Centro de Estudios Publicos, Frei's support dropped from 36% to 33% and then 30% among voters who expressed a preference. And while progressive candidates won a majority of the votes in the December 13 first round election (nearly 30% for Frei, 20% for Enriquez-Ominami, and 6% for leftist Jorge Arrate),capturing the Enriquez-Ominami votes in particular SANTIAGO 00000943 003 OF 003 will not be easy. ¶8. (C) To win on January 17, Frei would need to unite a disparate group of voters and generate enormous energy. In theory, Frei could do this either with a popular and ambitious set of goals that will appeal to a diverse constituency, or by attacking his opponent. Concertacion insider Enrique Correa believes that Frei is likely to take the first option, building a new, values-based campaign emphasizing social issues (e.g. the day-after contraceptive pill, civil unions for gay couples, and allowing limited access to abortion) and environmental protection. However, a campaign along these lines may be difficult to plan and execute, and may not lead to success. Frei has never clearly articulated what he hopes to achieve in a second term in office (beyond continuing the work of the extremely popular President Bachelet) and voters have shown little interest in policy platforms. ¶9. (C) It seems likely that Frei will also try to motivate people to vote against Pinera. Concertation has kept its grip on power for twenty years partially because Chilean voters associate the conservative Alianza coalition with the Pinochet regime. Although Pinera has been the most successful Alianza candidate so far to break with this mold--Pinera is a centrist who famously voted against military rule in the 1988 plebiscite--many of the older generation of Alianza politicians have connections to the Pinochet government. (Comment: Avoiding these links may be part of the reason why Pinera is now choosing to avoid established Alianza politicians in favor of up-and-coming conservatives. End Comment.) Similarly, Pinera himself is a highly successful--and at time ruthless--business tycoon with a number of skeletons in his closet (Refs A and B). Frei may paint Pinera as an unethical businessman who is allied with former dictatorship cronies. Yet even this unflattering portrait might not be enough to swing voters over to support Frei. As progressive think tank leader Maria de los Angeles Fernandez pointed out to poloff, "The voters already know that Pinera is a bit of a scoundrel, and they've chosen to support him anyway." Comment -------------- ¶10. (C) Frei's campaign has been characterized by well-publicized in-fighting, poor coordination, and few new ideas. The candidate himself is uncharismatic and--as a 67-year-old former president and son of a president--perfectly symbolizes Chile's stagnant politics. Frei's poor showing in Sunday's election, while worse than many expected, reflects a campaign which at nearly every turn has been bested by the better-organized, better-funded Pinera effort. A Frei victory on January 17--while still possible--will be very difficult to achieve. End Comment. SIMONS