The Marco Enríquez-Ominami Factor: Insight from Patricio Navia's El Díscolo

Peter M. Siavelis
AQ Web Exclusive
November 18, 2009

In the lead up to Chile’s presidential election on December 13, Marco Enríquez-Ominami has burst dramatically onto the country’s political scene. The 36-year-old dissident candidate—or díscolo, in Chilean political parlance—has shaken up the race by adding a new dynamic of competition and offering an exciting alternative presidential candidacy.

Enríquez-Ominami (or ME-O as he his colloquially known) is shaking up what had become a stale—indeed boring—pattern of post-authoritarian political competition. Since Chile’s return to democracy in 1990, the center-left Concertación alliance, of which Enríquez-Ominami was once a member, has governed Chile. It is the country’s longest-lived and most successful coalition, capturing the presidency four times, each in two coalition contests against the center-right Alianza (now known as the “Coalition for Change”).

Surprisingly, polls show Enríquez-Ominami slightly trailing the Concertación’s mainstream candidate, Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei. A poll published by the Center for Public Studies (CEP) on November 11 shows ME-O at 19 percent and Frei at 26 percent support. Center-right businessman Sebastian Piñera leads all three candidates and is likely to receive 36 percent of the vote. But with a majority out of reach for all three candidates, it is far from certain as to who will face off in the second round of voting in January.

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