After holding power in Chile since the end of Pinochet's military dictatorship in 1988, the social democratic coalition Concertacion lost power to the right wing Alianza coalition in the December and January elections.
In the first round of the presidential election on December 13, Alianza won 36%, Concertacion 29% and independent Marco Enrique Ominami just over 20%. The Chilean Communist Party (PCC) won 6.2%.
As no candidate for the presidency secured an absolute majority, there was a run-off election on January 17 between the two leading candidates. Alianza's billionaire candidate, Sebastian Pinera, won 51.6%, defeating Concertacion candidate and Christian Democratic Party member Eduardo Frei.
Alianza was formed in 2000 by Renovacion Nacional (RN) and Union Democratica Independiente (UDI). RN represents itself as the "democratic" right, whereas the UDI's roots are in the ultra-conservative pro-Pinochet elite.
Pinera has a reputation for not being a supporter of Pinochet. A former RN senator, he did not oppose the referendum that ended the Pinochet regime. But there is a strong presence of the UDI in Alianza.
The combination of Alianza's anti-democratic tendencies and strongly neoliberal policies indicate a likely ratcheting up of the offensive against workers and the poor.
Pinera is one of the world's 700 richest people. Before the election, he had an extensive stock portfolio, including controlling stakes in airline Lan Chile, a television network station and substantial stakes in Chile's leading football team.
Pinera refused to sell his assets until the day after the election, making hundreds of millions in profit from the bigsurge in the stock prices of his investments after his win.
Justin Vogler said in a January 19 Upsidedownworld.org article: "Like rightwing populists the world over, Pinera wooed the masses with endless promises of 'a strong hand against crime', a 'million jobs', spectacular economic growth and spurious stories of his rise from rags to riches.
But in many ways, the election was less won by Alianza than it was lost by Concertacion, a coalition between the Christian Democrats and the Socialist Party.
A February 3 article on US socialist site Solidarity-us.org pointed out the total number of votes cast for Alianza did not surpass their totals in the 1999 and 2005 run-offs.
It is simply that even less votes were cast for Concertacion.
The Chilean electorate has become increasingly disillusioned with the political process. Less than 60% of those eligible voted in the January poll.
Disillusion is very strong among youth. A December 12 New York Times article said only 9.2% of Chileans between 18 and 29 were registered to vote.
This is the result of two decades of Concertacion implementing anti-people neoliberal polices.
Solidarity-us.org said Concertacion governments had "severely repressed [indigenous] Mapuche communities in their fights to reclaim land from forestry and energy companies, many of them multinationals.
"In fact, the government has deployed its repressive apparatuses under the guise of a Pinochet era anti-terrorist law.
"And it has done so quite effectively, imprisoning scores of activists and killing not a few."
Workers' conditions remain poor, the article said. "Recent estimates show that well over half of Chilean workers are under-employed, informally employed or employed in jobs considered 'precarious'."
Pinochet's repressive anti-union laws remain in force, with industry-wide organised unions banned and no legal protection for informal and subcontracted workers.
Concertacion governments also implemented wide-spread privatisations.
Independent candidate Ominami, who broke from the ranks of Concertacion in 2009, tapped into voter frustration with his attacks on the "business as usual politics" of the two main parties — and won 20% of the vote. But his policies remained neoliberal.
Facing inevitable attacks from hard right government, the social movements have the important challenge of giving direction to and mobilising popular disenchantment with the status quo.