With just under 92% of ballots counted, Mr Pinera had nearly 37% of the vote, against almost 23% for Senator Alejandro Guillier, an independent centre-left candidate, and 20% for Beatriz Sanchez, who ran for the leftist Broad Front coalition. Mr Pinera needed to get 50% of the votes to win outright. He will face the number two finisher, which seemed likely to be Mr Guillier, in a run-off election on December 17. Opinion polls had made the conservative Mr Pinera, 67, a strong favourite going into Sunday's election. After struggling with large protests over inequality and education during his 2010-2014 presidency, Mr Pinera ended his term with low popularity ratings.

Source: Irish Independent November 20, 2017 02:37 UTC