(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Sebastián Piñera continues to be favoured by roughly two-in-four Chileans to become president after the next ballot, according to a poll by Imaginaccion. 38.7 per cent of respondents would vote for the conservative candidate of the National Renewal (RN) party in next year’s election, up five points since May.

Former Chilean president Ricardo Lagos Escobar of the governing Agreement of Parties for Democracy (CPD) is a distant second with 16 per cent, followed by current Organization of American States (OAS) secretary-general José Miguel Insulza with 8.7 per cent, and former foreign minister Soledad Alvear with 5.4 per cent. Support is lower for Joaquín Lavín of the conservative Independent Democratic Union (UDI), former president Eduardo Frei and former presidential candidate Tomás Hirsch of the leftist Humanist Party (PH).

The CPD’s Michelle Bachelet—a former defence minister—was elected in a January 2006 run-off with 53.49 per cent of all cast ballots. Piñera was second with 46.51 per cent.

Since taking office, Bachelet has faced massive protests staged by high school students complaining about the poor quality of public education, as well as street demonstrations in Santiago, the capital city, over the botched implementation of a new transportation program called Transantiago.

The centre-left CPD—which includes the Socialist Party (PS), the Christian-Democratic Party of Chile (PCD), the Party for Democracy (PD) and the Radical Social-Democratic Party (PRSD)—has not lost a single presidential election in Chile since the return of democracy after the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in March 1990.

On Oct. 5, former president Lagos said he would not seek a new term in office, declaring, "I’m not going to be a candidate. There are many ways to serve the country and I will do what I’m doing now: helping candidates."

Bachelet is ineligible for a consecutive term in office. The next presidential election in Chile is scheduled for December 2009.

Polling Data

If the next presidential election took place this Sunday, which candidate would you vote for?

Source: Imaginaccion
Methodology: Interviews with 1,019 Chilean adults, conducted from Aug. 1 to Aug. 30, 2008. Margin of error is 3 per cent.

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