SANTIAGO – As Franco Parisi tells it, he has suddenly become the most sought-after man in Chile.

A populist economist who placed third in Chile's presidential election last weekend , Parisi told The Associated Press on Saturday that he has been fielding calls all week from left-wing government officials and right-wing opposition leaders. He was even bombarded in a restaurant by a former Cabinet minister, he said.

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Everyone is after the same thing: Help swaying the crucial 20% of the electorate that backed him last Sunday to vote for one of the two front-runners in Chile’s Dec. 14 runoff election: Communist Jeannette Jara or her hard-right rival, José Antonio Kast.

His answer, quite simply, is no.

“I’m not talking to either of them because I don’t trust them,”

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