BY ANDREA ELLIOTT

 SANTIAGO, Chile -- Socialist Ricardo Lagos won Chile's presidency Sunday,
 narrowly defeating his right-wing opponent, Joaquin Lavin, in a runoff election.

 Lagos, the candidate of the country's ruling coalition government, pulled in 51.31
 percent of the votes, beating Lavin, who received 48.69 percent, according to an
 official tally of more than 87 percent of the votes.

 Lagos, 61, will be the first socialist president to rule Chile since Salvador Allende,
 who attempted to remake the country in a Marxist image and was ousted by Gen.
 Augusto Pinochet in a violent 1973 coup. But Lagos has repeatedly distanced
 himself from traditional far-left positions of his Socialist Party.

 ``Lagos will be the first president of the 21st Century and the president of all
 Chileans,'' said Sergio Bitar, president of the Party for Democracy, one of four
 parties that make up the ruling coalition, or Concertacion.

 Cars flooded the streets of Santiago and crowds gathered around Lagos'
 command post at the downtown Hotel Carrera, waving flags and cheering as the
 decisive tallies were announced.

 Polls leading up to the election showed the candidates in a tie, and analysts were
 hesitant to predict the outcome.

 The turnout was heavy, with more than 7.3 million of about 8 million registered
 voters peacefully casting ballots. Polls closed with no reports of problems.

 Lavin conceded defeat at 8:30 p.m.

 ``We cannot be sad,'' he said. ``We ran a great campaign and obtained a
 spectacular vote.''

 Not since 1990 has the coalition come so close to losing power, or the right so
 close to winning half the country's votes. A Dec. 12 election left Lagos and Lavin
 in a dead heat, each winning about 47 percent of the votes.

 ANOTHER TERM

 Lagos will replace Christian Democratic President Eduardo Frei in March to begin
 a third six-year term for the coalition that has ruled Chile since Pinochet was
 ousted in a plebiscite and stepped down in 1990.

 Analysts had predicted that the news of Pinochet's possible return to Chile from
 house arrest in London would have a minimal effect on the election, but could tip
 the scale in favor of either candidate.

 The news may have cost Lavin centrist votes, which he courted by distancing
 himself from the Pinochet dictatorship, but it also could have cost Lagos
 communist votes by linking him to the government that pushed for Pinochet's
 return.

 ``In a race this tight, everything has an influence,'' said Chilean historian and
 political analyst Lucia Santa Cruz.

 Lagos, a U.S.-trained economist and former minister of education and public
 works under the ruling coalition, vowed not to be ``the country's second socialist
 president, but the third Concertacion president.''

 SHIFT IN POLLS

 Six months ago, Lagos enjoyed a comfortable lead in the polls, but Lavin, 46,
 surged ahead, using the country's current recession to rally voters, particularly
 the 20 percent of Chileans below the poverty line.

 For Lagos, Chile's economic landscape could not have been worse: The country's
 economy, which grew at a rate of 7 percent for almost a decade, shrank 1 percent
 last year; unemployment is at 10 percent.

 Lagos was also hurt, his critics and supporters agree, by a poorly run campaign.
 For months, he used the slogan ``Growth with equality'' and gave speeches
 steeped in ideology.

 By contrast, Lavin ran a slick, market-driven campaign, offering voters solutions to
 concrete problems such as crime, insufficient health care and unemployment.

 Lavin's unexpected popularity forced Lagos, in the second round of campaigning,
 to change his message. Enlisting the help of some of Chile's top advertising
 experts, Lagos shifted his focus from economic equality to Chile's modernization
 under the two coalition governments of the last decade.

 FAMILY VALUES

 While Lavin and Lagos took similar stances on many political issues, they were
 divided on the family values front. In a predominantly Roman Catholic country
 where abortion and divorce are illegal, Lavin, a devout Catholic, had a clear
 advantage over Lagos, who is agnostic, twice-married and in favor of therapeutic
 abortion.

 Both Lagos and Lavin steered clear of mentioning Pinochet's arrest, which had
 faded as an issue of importance to a majority of Chileans by the time
 campaigning began six months ago. They agreed that Pinochet was not above
 the law and should be brought to trial if he returns home.

 Lavin, who visited the general in England in late 1998, distanced himself from the
 dictatorship by meeting with the relatives of some of the 3,000 people who were
 killed or disappeared during Pinochet's 16-year rule.

 Lagos' one attempt to counter this strategy by linking Lavin to Pinochet in a
 television ad was poorly received. Lagos made his political name in Chile by
 publicly denouncing the general on national television in 1988 -- a move some
 considered life-threatening.

                     Copyright 2000 Miami Herald