CEP minus one

Slight interruption in our regularly scheduled programming, as I was attending a conference in Rio de Janeiro. It was good to see colleagues from around the world, and Rio was outstanding.

Back in smoggy Santiago, all the talk is about the CEP poll which comes out tomorrow. Despite the fact that public opinion polls are published every day, the CEP is considered to be the most reliable, and is the standard against which political campaigns rise or fall.

So, for those of you who will not be able to sleep all night waiting for the results, here's my prediction:

Piñera 35-39%

Frei 25-29%

Enriquez-Ominami 13-19%

Undecideds +/- 20%

You can all laugh at me tomorrow. But if I am right, it's a decent result for Ominami, a bad result for Frei, but not a good result for Piñera. I suspect that all the in-fighting in the Alianza in recent days is due to their own internal numbers, which show that Piñera has hit a ceiling.

So CEP will be a bit like the 2008 municipal elections: something for everyone.
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