ENRÍQUEZ-OMINAMI PICKS UP NEW ENDORSEMENT

Independent presidential candidate Marco Enríquez-Ominami (MEO) added to his growing list of supporters the president of the leftist Regional Independent Party (PRI), Jaime Mulet.

The independent presidential candidate, a former Socialist Party deputy, reportedly struck a deal with Mulet to win his support in exchange for Enríquez-Ominami’s endorsement of Mulet’s senatorial run in the Atacama Region (Region III).

Mulet’s support for Enríquez-Ominami’s presidential run became possible because the PRI’s own candidate, Adolfo Zaldívar, dropped out of the race in September due to low poll numbers. In August, Mulet had said, “Marco Enríquez-Ominami is the candidate most like our own, though to be sure not as good.”

Enríquez-Ominami has been running consistently in third place in public opinion polls, though recent studies have shown him gaining ground on the top two candidates, Sen. (and former President) Eduardo Frei of the center-left governing Concertación coalition, and billionaire businessman Sebastián Piñera, from the conservative Alianza coalition. A third candidate, Jorge Arrate, a former labor and education minister under Frei and former president Patricio Aylwin, now with the left political party Juntos Podemos, has been polling just 2 percent of the vote.

Last month Enríquez-Ominami won the support of Sen. Alejandro Navarro of the Broad Socialist Movement (MAS), when Navarro ended his own presidential run the night before the first presidential debate (ST, Sept. 24 ).

The top three candidates participated in a debate on agriculture Monday, and all four are scheduled for a debate on Friday Oct. 9 to be broadcast on the radio–a television broadcast is still up in the air. The structure of the debate and the topics will not be released beforehand to the public or the candidates. Another debate will take place on Oct. 27, though so far only Enríquez-Ominami and Piñera have agreed to participate.