The photographs in Chile's newspapers yesterday morning said it all. The right-wing Alliance candidate, Mr Joaquin Lavin, wore a broad smile: the Concertacion candidate, Socialist Mr Ricardo Lagos, wiped his left eye.
It was a great day for the former supporters of Gen Augusto Pinochet as cavalcades of noisy Lavin supporters made the streets of Santiago their own. Mr Lagos's bid to be the first socialist president of Chile, since Salvador Allende's government was overthrown by Gen Pinochet's coup, failed its first test. Christian Democrat supporters of the ruling Concertacion coalition seem to have deserted for Mr Lavin, in quite large numbers.
Now Mr Lagos and Mr Lavin must do it all again on January 16th, in a second round without the distraction of the smaller parties. The other parties did badly in this campaign, with the Communists in particular faring much worse than expected. The main focus of the leading candidates will be the million people who did not vote at all first time.
Last week the Christian Democrat Concertacion President, Mr Eduardo Frei, made a strong attack on Mr Lavin, both for overspending on his campaign and for being duplicitous about his support for draconian labour laws imposed by Gen Pinochet.
On Sunday three million Chileans did not agree with their President, and put Mr Lavin just 31,000 votes behind Mr Lagos in a count of over seven million. But neither Mr Lagos with 47.6 per cent of the vote, or Mr Lavin on 47.52 per cent, achieved the necessary 50 per cent plus one for an outright victory.
Despite Mr Lagos's comfortable lead in early opinion polls, at no time did the parties of the Concertacion appear committed to winning. The Christian Democrat Party's hesitancy was comprehensible given its internal debates following the overwhelming defeat of its candidate, Andres Zaldivar, by Mr Lagos in a primary election in May.
The lack of energy in the Socialist Party was more surprising. This was due to many factors, but the party has not finished reconstructing itself following the debacle of the Pinochet years, although it insists on acting as though it has.
The well-orchestrated and well-financed campaign of Mr Lavin won the day. His total was the highest received by a right-wing opposition presidential candidate since Chile's return to democracy in 1990, and was 3 per cent more than the 44.5 per cent received by Gen Pinochet in the 1988 plebiscite that brought his dictatorship to an end.
Analysts attributed Mr Lavin's strong showing to the effectiveness of his message calling for change and as a protest vote by citizens chastising the government's perceived failure in dealing with economic and rising crime issues.
Mr Lavin may have reached his maximum vote, and the Chilean presidency now depends on whether Mr Lagos can retain his own support while bringing more Christian Democrats and first-round non-voters behind him.