Pinera, Guillier to contest runoff in Chile election
Santiago, (MILLAT ONLINE):Billionaire conservative Sebastian Pinera, who held a commanding lead in Chile’s first round of presidential elections, and leftist former TV journalist Alejandro Guillier will contest a runoff next month.
Ex-president Pinera had a 36.6 percent lead to Guillier’s 22.6 percent with more than 90 percent of the votes counted after the first round.
“Tonight we have achieved a great electoral result and above all because we have opened the doors which will lead us to better times,” Pinera told his triumphant supporters.
Guillier, an independent supported by President Michelle Bachelet’s Socialist party, beat off a stiff challenge from an unheralded far-left candidate, Beatriz Sanchez, for the second runoff place.
Pinera, a 67-year-old billionaire who was president from 2010 to 2014, had been the clear favorite going into Sunday’s first round. The second round is set for December 17.
“The result is very similar to the one we had in 2009, and in 2009 we won the election, and we managed to get our country up and running,” said Pinera, who campaigned on reviving an economy that has suffered years of weak growth.
“The result completely reconfigures the Chilean political landscape,” University of Santiago analyst Rene Jara told AFP after both far-left and far-right candidates polled more strongly than expected among the eight presidential candidates.
Sanchez, who polled around a million votes as a representative of the anti-austerity Frente Amplio party, had given her party “very strong negotiating power for the second round,” said Jara.
Although her party had been reluctant to pledge support for Guillier, “they are obliged to do so because they will not be responsible for a return of Pinera to power.”
Analysts said Pinera will be forced to appeal to the far right for support in the second round, after extreme right-candidate Jose Antonio Kast polled strongly, taking 7.9 percent of the votes.