Chilean Presidential election, 2006 (Napoleon's World)

The Chilean Presidential election of 2006 was held on January 16 and February 10 to elect the President of Chile. The election featured six candidates, three from parties on the left after the splitup of the People's Democratic Unity (PSDP, PDS and PCCh). This electoral split sent the favored rightist coalition CDN candidate Joaquín Lavín and Radical Party candidate Jesús Cohn Martinelli to the runoff, where Lavín won 54.2%-45.8%. The election returned the Chilean right to power with Lavín as President, although he would be forced to moderate many of his positions from the 1990s after the National and Christian Democratic Parties wound up seizing the largest share of seats in the coalition in that March's Congressional election.

The election is best known for coming right after outgoing President Isabel Allende's disastrous and much-maligned decision to invite the Communist Party to join the UDP, causing the Party for Social Democracy to stage a televised walk-out of the coalition convention in November of 2005. This collapse of the left fragmented the left almost irreparably.