In Chile, Presidential Candidates Woo Gay Voters
- By
- On Top Magazine Staff
- | November 14, 2013
With a week before voters head to the polls, candidates for Chile's highest office headed to the Gay Pride Parade.
Five of Chile's nine presidential candidates put in a personal appearance Saturday at Santiago's event.
Marco Enriquez-Ominami, of Partido Progresista (Progressive Party); independents Franco Paris and Tomas Jocelyn-Holt; Roxana Miranda, of Partido Igualdad (Equality Party), and Alfredo Sfeir, of Partido Ecologista Verde (Green Ecologist Party), expressed in person their support for marriage equality.
Michelle Bachelet, the frontrunner, sent a representative, as did Marcel Claude, the humanist candidate.
Evelyn Matthei, the official candidate, and Ricardo Israel, of Partido Regionalista Independiente (the Independent Rationalist Party), oppose gay marriage.
Organizer El Movimiento de Integracion y Liberacion Homosexual, known as Movilh, said that 60,000 people attended the event.
Polls suggest Bachelet could win Sunday's election without the need for a runoff. To do that, she must capture 50 percent of the vote.
Bachelet, who served a 4-year term as president ending in 2010, returned from abroad in May to seek a second term.
Bachelet has also endorsed extending marriage rights to gay couples.
In 2011, conservative President Sebastian Pinera introduced a civil unions bill in fulfillment of a campaign promise. But the proposal, criticized by activists, failed to gain traction.