* Chile"s peso slides ahead of weekend elections * Latam stocks underperform broader EM peers (Adds comments, bullets, details; updates prices throughout) By Shreyashi Sanyal Nov 16 (Reuters) - The Turkish lira led declines among emerging market currencies on Tuesday against a strong dollar, while Chile"s peso sank ahead of weekend elections and on sliding copper prices. The lira tumbled 2.3% to a new record low against the dollar, ahead of an expected Turkish interest rate cut that many analysts say is unnecessary, while South Africa"s rand, Mexico"s peso, Chile"s peso and Russia"s rouble also fell. "The lira ... is already on a downward trend and suffering the dynamics where higher inflation is causing the lira to weaken and the weakening lira is causing inflation to rise," said Ulrich Leuchtmann, head of FX research at Commerzbank in Frankfurt. "If you don"t expect the central bank to come out and put a halt to this at some point, it becomes a vicious circle." MSCI"s index of EM currencies fell 0.29% and was set for its worst session since early September, as the dollar renewed 16-month highs bolstered by better-than-expected U.S. retail sales data strengthening the case for faster monetary policy tightening. Sentiment had been upbeat earlier in the day after a positive start in talks between the United States and China had raised hopes of easing tensions and possibly reducing tariffs. Chile"s currency fell 1.5%, leading declines among Latin American units. Eyes are also on weekend presidential elections in Chile with far-right front-runner Jose Antonio Kast making a rapid surge in opinion polls. The most likely outcome is a split vote with main rival Gabriel Boric, leading to a run-off in December. Brazil"s real fell 0.8%, on returning from a day"s holiday. Data on Tuesday showed surging inflation and higher interest rates had started to choke economic activity in Brazil. The IBC-Br economic activity index, a leading indicator of gross domestic product, fell by 0.27% in September from the previous month. Latam stocks fell, underperforming a broader index of EM shares. Chile"s benchmark index slumped 1.8%, extending losses to a third straight session. Latin American stock indexes and currencies at 1951 GMT: Stock indexes Latest Daily % change MSCI Emerging Markets 1290.02 0.25 MSCI LatAm 2138.19 -1.76 Brazil Bovespa 104812.78 -1.43 Mexico IPC 51077.85 -0.69 Chile IPSA 4304.32 -1.78 Argentina MerVal 89882.74 -3.351 Colombia COLCAP 1336.93 -1.44 Currencies Latest Daily % change Brazil real 5.4984 -0.77 Mexico peso 20.7072 -0.50 Chile peso 811.2 -1.54 Colombia peso 3892.57 -0.26 Peru sol 3.9861 -0.11 Argentina peso (interbank) 100.2900 0.00 Argentina peso (parallel) 197.5 1.01 (Reporting by Susan Mathew and Shreyashi Sanyal in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Karin Strohecker; Editing by Nick Macfie and Grant McCool)