Reply #18: After 18 Years in Power, Chilean Coalition Struggles to Stay United [View All]

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After 18 Years in Power, Chilean Coalition Struggles to Stay United

By: iStockAnalyst

Sunday, July 20, 2008 3:56 AM

SANTIAGO, Chile _ When democracy returned to Chile nearly two decades ago after the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet, rivals on the political left and center realized they needed to work together to make sure the bad old days of political polarization didn't return.

That's when four parties formed what's become the main political force here over the past 18 years, the Concertacion coalition, which has given the citizens of this nation of 16.3 million the political stability and consensus it desperately needed.

The coalition appears to be falling apart now, however, more than halfway through its fourth straight government. The common wisdom is that the administration of President Michelle Bachelet could be the last one of the Concertacion.

A poll by the nonprofit Public Studies Center released a couple weeks ago showed businessman Sebastian Pinera, the presumptive presidential candidate of the conservative Alliance for Chile coalition, handily beating any of the Concertacion's four main candidates in next year's presidential elections.

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http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews+articleid_2413681&title=After_18_Years_in_Power.html