Chilean presidential election, 2009–2010

Runoff election

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Candidate Sebastián Piñera Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle Party National Renewal Christian Democratic Alliance Coalition for Change Concertación Popular vote 3,591,182 3,367,790 Percentage 51.61% 48.39%
Presidential runoff election results map. Blue denotes communes won by Piñera, Orange denotes those won by Frei.
President before election Michelle Bachelet Socialist Elected President Sebastián Piñera National Renewal

Michelle Bachelet
Socialist

Sebastián Piñera
National Renewal

The first round of the Chilean presidential election of 2009–2010 was held on Sunday December 13, 2009. Based on the two-round system, since none of the candidates secured the absolute majority needed to take the presidency outright, a run-off between the two most-voted candidates —center-right Sebastián Piñera and center-left Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle— was held on Sunday, January 17, 2010. Piñera, who won the runoff with about 51.6% of the vote, succeeded Michelle Bachelet on March 11, 2010. Parliamentary elections took place on the same day.

Chilean politics is dominated by two main coalitions: the center-left Concert of Parties for Democracy (Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia), composed of the Christian Democrat Party, the Socialist Party, the Party for Democracy, and the Social Democrat Radical Party; and the center-rightAlliance for Chile (Alianza por Chile), composed of the Independent Democratic Union and National Renewal. The Concertación selected former president Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle as their candidate, while the Alianza chose former presidential candidate Sebastián Piñera, who is supported by the newly created Coalition for Change electoral group. The far-left Juntos Podemos Más pact selected former Socialist Party member Jorge Arrate as its candidate. Another former Socialist party member, deputy Marco Enríquez-Ominami (MEO), ran as independent.