Frei and the Concertación

You have to feel sorry for Eduardo Frei. In April he became the Concertación presidential candidate. In May he had to remind everyone of this fact. Now fellow Christian Democratic Senator Soledad Alvear says that his campaign will really get going after the Concertación decides on its legislative candidates. She said then it would become a "collective project" rather than just this one really boring old white guy (well, no, she didn't say the last part).

And the quality of that collective project? The Socialist Party is tearing itself up over the attempted candidacy of Marco Enríquez-Ominami, as the president of the party (Camilo Escalona) called him a "fraud" because he is collecting signatures to run as an independent rather than as a Socialist, which Escalona says is tricking people who are asked to sign. Enríquez-Ominami came back rather lamely with the argument that he had checked with a lawyer and his actions were not illegal.

So for now perhaps that is his campaign slogan: "I am not doing this illegally."

You can see his website here. The word "socialist" is nowhere to be found.

The funny thing is that the Concertación still has a perfectly good chance of winning the election.