Piñera is expected to maintain close ties with the U.S., unlike the leaders of several other leftist governments in Bolivia, Nicaragua & Venezuela.

From The Washington Post:

Sebastian Piñera, a conservative billionaire businessman, won the presidency of Chile on Sunday, ending a generation of rule by a center-left coalition that had overseen the transformation of the country of 17 million into Latin America's most politically stable and economically dynamic.

Political analysts say Piñera will stay on the same free-market course pursued by Concertacion leaders while maintaining popular social programs that have given Chile Latin America's lowest poverty rate.

Piñera is expected to maintain close ties with the United States, unlike the leaders of several other leftist governments in Latin America, notably in Bolivia, Nicaragua and oil-rich Venezuela.

Piñera has barely hidden his disdain for the region's more left-leaning leaders. He told a group of foreign reporters last month that he admired leaders such as Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Peruvian President Alan Garcia, both market-friendly presidents.

Bolivia could prove to be a particularly nettlesome problem for Piñera. That neighboring, landlocked country, led by President Evo Morales, a close ally of Venezuelan firebrand Hugo Chavez, has been demanding access to the sea through Chile's remote north, a region the Bolivians lost in a 19th-century war.