This week, the official candidates of the right-wing party announced their intent to run in the primary elections which will take place between April and May 2013

SANTIAGO — Laurence Golborne and Andrés Allamand are the official candidates selected by the Independent Democratic Union (UDI) and the National Renewal(RN) to participate in the presidential elections next year.

Laurence Goldborne was the Minister of Energy and Mining until June 18, 2011 when he was named Minister of Public Affairs by President Sebastián Piñera himself.

Moreover, he played an important role during the operation to rescue the 33 miners trapped in Atacama in 2010 and also combated the gas conflict in Las Magallanes in 2011.

Regarding his candidature, Goldborne declared that he feels ready to face Michelle Bachelet as an opponent for the role of president.

The president of the UDI, Patricio Melero, affirms his support of the Gouldborne, stating that “people on the street say that he is the only one capable of rising to the challenge to face Bachelet.”

Andrés Allamand is one of the founders of the Renovación Nacional and also one of the creators of UDI. He was senator in the Lake District and was named Minister of Defense under Piñera’s government. He is also the founder of la Escuela de Gobierno in La Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez.

When asked about his strategy for the Presidential elections, he responded, “it should be a campaign which differentiates him from the rest thanks to his ideas and beliefs; in other words, there should be a specific project.”

UDI, together with RN and other smaller right-wing parties, founded the Colación por el Cambio in 2009 which is currently the largest political party in the Congress. The Independent Democratic Union is a right-wing, mostly conservative party in Chile.

The philosophy of the UDI is based primarily on the principles of guildism (gremialismo), whose main proponent was Augusto Pinochet’s collaborator, Jaime Guzmán. The ideology explains that a correct social order should be based on a steady relationship and interaction between the state and the people.

The Renovación Nacional emerged in 1987 as a right-center political party. Despite its conservative character, it is considered to have the more moderate political stance in the Coalición por el Cambio. The current president is Carlos Larraín Peña who upholds the ideology of the party which promotes a society built on the principles of neo-liberalism and liberal conservatism.
http://ilovechile.cl/2012/11/07/golborne-and-allamand-candidates-in-presidential-elections/71864