Followers of Sebastián Piñera await his arrival in Osorno, Chile on November 9, 2017. The presidential candidate and former president of Chile Sebastián Piñera met with his followers in the city of Osorno only a few days before the elections. (Photo by Fernando Lavoz/NurPhoto/Sipa USA). All rights reserved. Presidential elections in Chile will be held today, Sunday, November 19. All the polls indicate that former President Sebastián Piñera is the most likely candidate to win a majority of votes, although not enough to win outright in the first round. The question that puzzles the experts, however, is not so much who the runner-up will be, or the percentage of voter turnout, but how many people will actually vote. In 2012, Chile passed a bill changing the vote from compulsory to voluntary, and it is now the Latin American country with the lowest voter turnout. The picture becomes liquid when the likely voter universe is not known.
It is worth remembering some of the reasons behind Piñera’s probable return to the presidency. During Michele Bachelet’s first term (2006-2010), the parties in her coalition had significant clout, their policy program kept on refining the political model established since the re-establishment of democracy, and they had substantial citizen support. But the coalition failed to define a clear electoral strategy, chose a bad candidate, and so Sebastián Piñera won. Bachelet's approval ratings when she left La Moneda’s presidential palace were more than 80%, and she was fully aware that she would be a good contender to win the elections four years later.
Once the (Piñera's) administration was over, and with the ghost of Bachelet haunting over the following electoral process, the right-wing coalition underwent a generalized crisis process
