As many of you may or may not know, Chile held it´s latest presidential election today and Sebastian Piñera, a center-right candidate, won and ended the 20 year streak of left of center presidents and policies. He is the first democratically elected right-winger in 52 years, so it should be interesting to see how this plays out for us. Just wanted to let you guys know and hear your opinions. Billionaire Sebastian Pinera wins Chile presidency - Forbes.com
Interesting to see what will happen now.. How do you feel about it ? EDIT :You only get a response here if its about how evil Obama is..
Out of curiosity; was the major issue of the election just the economic clusterfuck-downturn? Or are there other pressing political problems going on down there? I don't know much about global politics to be honest. & how realistic do you think these promises are (from that Forbes article) ? That's a lotta growth to be promising in this global economic climate. what's that about? Frei was suggesting this fellow, Pinera, might not be so great with regards human rights...? How so? and that sounds familiar...
I wonder how much the fact that he is a billionaire had to do with his opponent conceding to somebody who was ahead by four-percentage points (52% to 48%) when only 60% of the votes had been tallied.
I´m real interested in how this will work out for us, I consider myself right of center, but for some reason don´t really like this guy, even though I agree with most of his policies. The real test will be in four years time when the next presidential election is held, we´ll see if the right stays in power or if they´re kicked out. Interesting thing is that this is actually more important in the grand scheme of S.A. politics than it is just nationally speaking. The major issues were probably the economy, unemployment and production, fighting delinquency and a big one was the 20 years that the Concertacion, left wing coalition, had been in power since Pinochet. I think the million jobs are BS, however I don´t consider it that difficult to have a 6% average growth, we´re estimated to grow around 4.5% - 4.8% this year regardless of policies. The thing about the human rights was basically the same thing the as the ´88 plebiscit, as in "don´t vote for the other guy, he´s the boogieman" scare tactic. He was basically saying that Piñera is a right wing guy and Pinochet was also, so he would start up with the same shit. I know some people who actually believe a curfew will be implemented... Frei conceded because Piñera had already won in the three major metropolitan areas and a large portion of the country. It was basically irreversible. Most opposition calls for "hope and change", it´s not real original Anyway, we might become a bit more interesting in the international arena as Chavez has already begun talking shit. He recently said "He had better not mess with us" and to called to "stay out of Venezuela´s business" after remarks made by Piñera in a presidential debate, and the day after becoming president elect. Funny thing is both candidates criticized his form of government in the debate, but nothing was said of Frei.
Heya ynotle, Sorry for the lack of interest in your thread. I've been steering clear of the politics section for... reasons beyond my control. I don't have a lot of knowledge about Chile, but from the little I do know, Chile has a lot of natural resources available while lacking the capital to extract them to the fullest extent -- much like Canada. Canada might be a bad example right now of how conservative governments can spur growth (much less fair representative government), but it sounds like such a dramatic shift is the will of the voting population in Chile and one based on economic concerns. Hopefully this government performs as expected.