A conservative businessman won most votes in Chile's presidential election yesterday, making him favourite to win a run-off and end nearly two decades of leftwing rule.

Preliminary results gave the billionaire Sebastian Pinera 44% of the vote, far ahead of his nearest rival but not enough to clinch a first-round victory. Pinera, who owns stakes in an airline and a media firm, promised to rejuvenate the economy but not radically shift Chile to the right. "Better times are coming to Chile," he said.

Pinera will square off on 17 January against Eduardo Frei, a former president who ran on the ticket of the ruling coalition, Concertación, which has been in power since the end of Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship in 1990. Frei, who came second with 31%, will try to rally support from voters who backed two other leftwing candidates: Marco Enriquez-Ominami took 19% and Jorge Arrate took 6%.

The country of 17 million people is a stable and prosperous Latin America success story, but Pinera tapped a perception that the ruling coalition was jaded. "Chile needs a true renaissance which frees us from this state of lethargy," he wrote in a Sunday newspaper column.

If Pinera prevails next month it would be the right's first poll victory in half a century, and distinguish Chile from a continent dominated by leftist governments.

Analysts said he was the right's most moderate candidate and would keep Chile on a centrist course. The two-chamber congress is expected to remain divided.

After a four-year term which saw copper and wine exports help to weather recession, President Michelle Bachelet has a 77% approval rating, but is constitutionally barred from seeking re-election.

Frei, a civil engineer whose 1994-2000 administration was buffeted by economic problems, has put Bachelet's name and face on his campaign posters, but struggled to transfer her popularity. At 67, he represents the old guard in a country which seems to want change.

The race was shaken up by Enríquez-Ominami, 36, a former film director and congressman who broke from the ruling coalition to run as an independent. Dubbed "the rebel", he promised to increase taxes on the rich and broached taboo subjects such as marijuana consumption, gay marriage and abortion.

"The big question is: What happens to Marco Enriquez-Ominami's votes?" Fabian Pressacco, a political analyst who expects a tight race, told Reuters. "How many of those votes will go to Frei? I think most of them will."