Weekly Report - 19 November 2009 (WR-09-46)

With less than one month to go until Chile's presidential and congressional elections on 13 December, Eduardo Frei of the ruling Concertación is clinging on to second place, but the independent candidate, Marco Enrí­quez-Ominami, is narrowing the gap all the time. Chile's most highly regarded opinion pollster, Centro de Estudios Públicos (CEP), which initially showed Enrí­quez-Ominami making little impression on voters, revealed in its latest survey released last week that if he emerges on top in the battle for second place, Enrí­quez-Ominami would stand a better chance than Frei of defeating Sebastián Piñera, of the right-wing Coalición por el Cambio, in the run-off on 17 January.