INTERVIEW - Chile's leftist says he believes in markets

By Louise Egan

SANTIAGO (Reuters) - A Chilean leftist who has emerged as a serious contender for the presidency says he has no plans to significantly change the country's free market economic model or to emulate any of the leftist Latin American leaders he has reached out to in his campaign.

Marco Enriquez-Ominami, a 36 year-old former film producer, has shaken up the political landscape in Chile by resigning from the center-left coalition that has governed for the past two decades and running as an independent in the Dec. 13 presidential election.

While a long shot, his candidacy has ruptured the traditional two-horses race between the main political blocs, and has split the vote on the left.

Some polls show him virtually tied with the government's candidate, Eduardo Frei, in second place and possibly making it to a run-off vote in January against front-runner Sebastian Pinera, a conservative businessman.

The popular president Michelle Bachelet, a socialist, cannot run for re-election under Chilean law.

Enriquez-Ominami's snowballing popularity has stunned his political rivals and investors are sitting up and taking notice.

He is the son of a leftist guerrilla who was killed under Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship and has earned the nickname "el Discolo," which means a rebel or unruly person.

But he laughs at the notion that foreign investors might worry he will take a radical turn after he met on Friday with Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa, a leader who has clashed with Washington and recently roiled financial markets by defaulting on billions of dollars of foreign debt which he called "illegitimate."