The political landscape in Chile

• The ruling Concertación Democrática centre-left block is a four-party alliance (from Socialists to Christian Democrats) and follows a moderate line;
  
• the main opposition group Alianza consists of a post-fascist centrist and a hard-right party, and champions both social and economic conservativism;
  
• the Juntos Podemos Más hard-left block contains the communist and humanist parties, and opposes the ruling alliance on grounds of concessions to neoliberalism;
  
• there are also a number of independents and candidates only part of a block, but not a party.

Held 11 December 2005. Participation was a fabulous 87.67%, while 3.68% of votes were invalid. The results¹:

1. Michelle Bachelet Jeria (Socialist, top left on Wiki image below) 45.96%
   
2. Sebastián Piñera Echeñique (neolib billionarire, bottom right) 25.41%
   
3. Joaquín Lavín Infante (hardline right-wing, bottom left) 23.23%
   
4. Tomas Hirsch Goldschmidt (hard left, top right) 5.40%

Results of the parliamentary elections

Held at the same time as the previous. The results:

Separately for parties, the two biggest are (still) the hard-right party (22.34%) and the Christian Democrats (20.81%), but the former's advantage reduced sharply (loss of 2.86 resp. gain of 1.89 PP). The only other significant change was another centre-left party's gain of 2.72%.

A little analysis of the first-round result

Let's start from the left: it is apparent that more than a quarter of the hard left (almost 2% of all voters) didn't follow their candidate and most probably voted for Bachelet. Before you cry Nader, what seems more significant is that, consequently, at least a seventh of the centre-left (5.8+2.0=7.8% of all voters) voted for a right-wing candidate. I suspect they were mostly socially conservative Christian Democrats.

On the Right, it's apparent that both candidates carried their parties (a sign of clear internal fronts), and that probably all of the traitorous centre-left vote went for Piñera.

What to expect based on the previous?

If on the right, all Lavín voters would vote for Piñera, and on the left, all voters of Hirsch Goldschmidt would stay home, the first-round right-wing advantage of 2.68% implies Piñera's victory. However, due to the following factors:

• there are animosities between the two right-wingers, meaning sole Lavín voters won't swallow voting for Piñera;
  
• some more hard-leftists could be convinced with the lesser evil argument;
  
• the Centre-Left beat predictions by gaining absolute majority of list votes, which means it won't depend on a hard-left vote², which means some cross-voting centrists could lose their fear and no more feel that they need a balance as President,