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 News from Around the Americas | January 2006 
Bachelet Ahead in Electoral Polls
 Prensa Latina
| | Presidential candidate Michelle Bachelet of the Socialist party, speaks during her campaign rally in Santiago, Chile, Saturday. The second round presidential election is scheduled for Jan. 15. (AP/Santiago Llanquin) |
Santiago de Chile - More relaxed but cautious, pro-government candidate Michelle Bachelet enters Monday the last week of the Chilean presidential campaign before the January 15 polling, leading the electoral race against opponent Sebastian Pinera.
After three hard weeks of rivalry, the former Defense minister welcomed the four poll results that reaffirmed her possibilities to be the first woman ever to be Chile´s president.
The center-left candidate took a clear 3 to 11 point lead over Piñera following the January 4 radio and TV debate.
A telephone survey immediately after the debate showed a 43.7 percent tie, but a later survey by Time Research gave Bachelet an 8 point edge (49 to 41), signaling a sudden twist that is leaving conservatives hopeless.
Another internal sample added if elections were January 8, Bachelet would win with 53 percent of votes against 47 for the economist millionaire.
Another poll conducted Saturday by La Tercera newspaper/DataVoz guaranteed Bachelet an 11 point edge (41 to 29.7 percent) and also found that 12.9 of voters were undecided and 9.2 did not respond. The last survey, executed Sunday by El Mercurio daily, gave the government nominee 47 percent and 44.4 to Piñera.
While Bachelet was pleased with the poll results, her rightwing opponent played them down and asserted his party will be celebrating a triumph and on January 15.
Pinera argues the Bachellet team is not counting the votes another rightwing candidate, Santiago former major Joaquín Lavín, won in the first electoral round and that these ballots will now go to him.
He recalls he won 25,22 percent of the vote while Lavín got more than 23 percent, making a total of more than 48 percent of the polling from the rightwing that will now vote for him.
Under this light, he further said that considering the 45,95 percent of the vote Bachellet won, he can beat her by 3 points.
However, analysts point to the fact that Pinera is not considering in his counts that the other candidate in the first round was communist Tomas Hirsch, who got 5.4 percent of the votes, and these ballots will likely go now to Bachellet. |
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