Weekly Report - 23 April 2009 (WR-09-16)

The likely presidential candidate of the opposition coalition Alianza por Chile, Sebastián Piñera, is battling to resolve sharp differences between his centre-right Renovación Nacional (RN) and the right-wing Unión Demócrata Independiente (UDI). The crux of the dispute is the selection of candidates for December's congressional elections, and the UDI's difficulty in accepting it is no longer the senior partner in the coalition. The upshot: the Alianza failed to capitalise on the travails of the ruling Concertación, which faced an awkward week as the umbrella trade union, Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (CUT) organised a general strike.