OAS Chief Insulza Says To Run For Chile Presidency

Another former president, Eduardo Frei, is now seen as the Concertacion`s lead candidate.

Jose Miguel Insulza, secretary-general of the Organization of American States, said on Thursday he plans to run for the presidency in his native Chile, where the ruling center-left coalition is faltering in polls.

Insulza arrived in Chile on Thursday to meet with the bloc of parties in the Concertacion coalition that has governed Chile since the end of the 1973-1990 dictatorship of the late Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

"I am going to take things one step at a time," Insulza told Chile's Radio Cooperativa. "I am going to talk to everybody and do what needs to be done. This is just the beginning. Elections are still a year away."

President Michelle Bachelet's ruling Concertacion coalition has not yet chosen a candidate for the 2009 presidential race. The Concertacion's front-running hopeful, ex-president Ricardo Lagos, pulled out of the race last week.

Another former president, Eduardo Frei, is now seen as the Concertacion's lead candidate, while Insulza is seen appealing to the harder left of the coalition.

Bachelet is not eligible to run for re-election.

The Concertacion has been battered in recent months as popular protests and scandals divided its ranks and the political right surged in the polls to levels not seen since Pinochet was ousted from power.

Polls tip a center-right billionaire, Sebastian Pinera of the Alianza coalition, to win the presidential election, although analysts say that in order to do that he will have to forge alliances with centrist independents. The first round of voting begins in December 2009.

In order to run for president of Chile, Insulza would have to leave his post in January at the Washington-based OAS, which is made up of 35 states of the Americas and is the world's oldest regional organization.