A BILLIONAIRE businessman bidding to be Chile’s first right-wing president since the ousting of dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1990 holds the slenderest of leads ahead of Sunday’s second round, with opinion polls showing his advantage all but evaporating in the race’s final stretch.
Sebastián Piñera won a crushing victory in last month’s first round, beating the ruling centre-left Concertación alliance’s candidate Eduardo Frei by 14 per cent.
But a final opinion poll by Mori on Wednesday gave the airline and television magnate just 50.9 per cent against 49.1 per cent for Mr Frei, well within the survey’s margin of error.
Mr Piñera has sought to capitalise on growing disenchantment after two decades of Concertación rule.
He has run under the slogan of change, and attacked cases of corruption and cronyism that, though minor by regional standards, have increased in recent years.
Mr Frei, who served as president in the 1990s, has been criticised by many in the ruling alliance for running a lacklustre campaign.
He has been unable to capitalise on the popularity of the incumbent Michelle Bachelet, whose approval ratings are more than 80 per cent. This has reinforced the perception among many Chileans that the alliance which oversaw the ousting of Pinochet from power and the country’s successful transition to democracy has now run out of steam.
Though Mr Piñera’s campaign has sought to downplay its origins as supporters of Pinochet, the shadow of the dictatorship still lingers over Chilean politics.
An independent left-wing candidate who polled 20 per cent in the first round and who swore he would not endorse either candidate in the second round this week said he would be voting for Mr Frei.
Though Marco Enriquez Ominami said Mr Frei could not bring the change Chile needed, he could not bring himself to endorse the right-wing alliance, saying: “I can recognise in Piñera and some of his colleagues a democratic conviction, but I cannot say the same of much of his support.”
The fathers of both Mr Enriquez Ominami and Mr Frei were murdered by the dictatorship.
Last week, Mr Piñera said he would not employ former Pinochet ministers in his government but other officials would be welcome so long as they played no part in human rights abuses.
“The truth is that the fact of having worked for a government, including the military government, is not a sin or a crime,” he told a television interviewer.
But at Santiago’s new Museum of Memory, dedicated to the victims of the Pinochet dictatorship, the idea of the return of Pinochet officials to power was greeted with dismay by visitors, many of whom were in tears watching the video testimonies of former detainees recounting the abuses they suffered in Pinochet’s dirty war in which over 3,000 people were murdered or disappeared.
“Bringing these people back to power would help validate the military government and make it seem somehow more legitimate.
“These people might not be directly responsible for crimes but they worked for an illegitimate government.
“It is an ethical issue,” says Diego Flores, who said while he was not enthusiastic about Mr Frei, he would be voting for him.
The problem for Mr Frei is growing disillusionment among young voters, especially in the Concertación heartlands.
In the poor Santiago neighbourhood of La Pincoya, older residents are largely supporting the government which helped turn the former shantytown into a well-kept neighbourhood with decent housing, utilities and a school.
But younger residents with no memory of conditions before Concertación rule are disillusioned. Three teenagers stretched out in the sun and smoking a joint say they do not care about politics.
“They all promise things but nothing changes,” says one who admits she has not even bothered to register to vote.
“We’re still here with little while those there in the nice neighbourhoods have a better life. So what is the point?”