If Bolivia's election highlights the persistence of political polarisation and the power of revolutionary ideologies in the region, the contest in neighbouring Chile shows that another, quite different and much more promising trend is also present. Twenty years after emerging from the violent political battles of the 1970s and 1980s, Chile has become Latin America's most successful economy and its most solid democracy.

Since the end of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in 1990, a centre-left coalition including Christian Democrats, Socialists and Radicals has won three successive elections. This alliance - known as the Concertación - has consolidated market-oriented reforms introduced in the 1980s and gradually opened up the political system.