Renovación Nacional

National Renewal (, RN) is a liberal conservative political party in Chile. It is a member of Chile Vamos, a center-right to right-wing coalition. Sebastián Piñera, the former President of Chile, is a member of the party. History National Renewal was formed on 29 April 1987 when three rightist organizations – the National Union Movement (Movimiento de Unión Nacional, MUN), the National Labour Front (Frente Nacional del Trabajo, FNT), and the Independent Democratic Union Movement (Movimiento Unión Demócrata Independiente, UDI) – joined in preparation for the 1988 Plebiscite that would determine the continuity or not of rule of Augusto Pinochet who had been in power since the coup of 1973. The UDI soon broke away to run as a separate party due to its strong support for the plebiscite and a Pinochet candidacy, while the remaining National Renewal party indicated its preference for an open election or a candidate other than Pinochet. However, once Pinochet was proclaimed candidate, the overwhelming majority of National Renewal supported him. The party was founded on 29 April with 351 founding members. In this way, National Renewal was the first political party to form in Chile after the lifting on the ban of political parties that had been established after the coup; by December of that year, 61,167 members, led by Andrés Allamand, had joined. The principal idea that the party proclaimed was to generate an environment of calm during the return of democracy. The party supported UDI candidate Joaquín Lavín as the sole Alliance candidate in the 1999/2000 presidential elections, who went on to obtain 47.5% of the votes in the first round, but was subsequently defeated in the second round by Ricardo Lagos.