Billionaire Pinera wins Chile runoff

Reporting from Bogota, Colombia — 

Right-wing billionaire Sebastian Pinera won Chile’s runoff presidential election Sunday, defeating former President Eduardo Frei, the man he bested by a big margin in December’s first round of voting.

Pinera’s triumph ends a 20-year hold on power by Frei’s Concertacion political alliance, which is also the party of incumbent President Michelle Bachelet. The coalition has held power since Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s 17-year authoritarian regime ended in 1990.

Frei conceded the race when -- with 60% of the votes counted -- Pinera had tallied 51.87%. Frei said the results demonstrated the “solidity of Chilean democracy.”

Pinera seemed a cinch to win after he beat Frei in December’s first round 44% to 30%, but he saw his advantage in polls narrow to under 2 points in the final days of the campaign after a poor performance in a Jan. 11 televised debate. Frei had hammered away at Pinera’s supposed sympathies with the military dictatorship and got crucial backing from a leftist lawmaker who finished a strong third in last month’s initial voting.

Pinera ran on promises to streamline the bureaucracy, improve educational standards and steer Chile toward more industrialization and away from a reliance on exports of commodities such as copper, wine and fresh fruit.

Although outgoing President Bachelet is immensely popular, with recent opinion polls giving her a 79% approval rating, many Chileans are impatient with the nation’s sluggish economy and high unemployment.

“I came to vote early because a change is necessary,” said Norma Maino, a 55-year-old homemaker, after casting her ballot at Cervantes school in the capital, Santiago. Voting is obligatory in Chile, and 8 million were expected to cast ballots.

Pinera lost some ground in last week’s televised debate when Frei asked him to promise not to appoint any ex-Pinochet officials to his government. That part of the debate allowed the Pinochet ghost to intrude, constituting a strategic error on Pinera’s part, said Patricio Navia, professor of global studies at New York University.

Frei’s campaign also had insisted that Pinera would curtail the extensive social programs, including universal healthcare and pensions, instituted under Concertacion rule. Although Pinera took pains to assure voters that he would retain the social safety net, doubts persisted among some voters.

“I voted for Frei because, if Pinera wins, we are going to lose everything that we have gained socially in health and other things,” said Julio Pavez, a 62-year-old college professor who also arrived at the opening of the polls.

Bachelet publicly questioned whether Pinera was willing to remove himself from his considerable business interests, and she praised Frei for having sold or placed in trust about $2 million in holdings.

Pinera, who holds a doctorate in economics from Harvard, said he would wait until after the election to distance himself from his fortune, which includes a minority interest in Chile’s flagship airline LAN, a TV station and the country’s most popular professional soccer team.

Chile’s bloody past came to the fore in the final week of the campaign when Bachelet, a victim of torture during the dictatorship, inaugurated the Museum of Memory and Human Rights. Frei was invited to the Jan. 11 ceremony but Pinera was not, an omission that he complained bitterly about.

Frei had promised to repeal a 1978 amnesty law shielding alleged military torturers and killers from prosecution for possible crimes dating back to September 1973, when then-President Salvador Allende was overthrown. Pinera, meanwhile, told 700 retired army officers that he would oppose any effort to prosecute retired military officers for crimes during that period if they hadn’t already been charged.

Pinera has tried to move his right-wing orientation to the center by appealing to gay voters and indicating his support for abortion rights. But his plan to partly privatize state-controlled companies, including copper giant Codelco, has galvanized opposition from unions.

Such privatization is opposed by most Chileans.

Special correspondent Eva Vergara in Santiago, Chile, contributed to this report.