Chile's Bachelet Eyes Election Triumph

-zootsuit: November 26, 2005

This is just plain cool. All of South America is improving, no doubt due largely to the fact that the United States is so busy poking around in the lives of Middle Easterners, that they don't have the time or resources to do as they have done for literally 150 years - namely inject themselves into South & Central American affairs with horrible consequences for average people. It is a sad truth, but it seems that the Middle East has been sacrificed to give South & Central America breathing room to  grow into the powerhouse it should have been a long time ago. I wish them well. May their poverty reduction programs work, their freedoms increase, their lives be richer and healthier.

-Fiona Ortiz: November 26, 2005

SANTIAGO, Chile (Reuters) - Socialist Michelle Bachelet is sure she will become Chile's first woman president but she said on Saturday it was unlikely she will win in the first round next month.

Polls show Bachelet, 53, from the center-left coalition that has run Chile for 15 years, will probably not get more than 50 percent of the vote on December 11, but will comfortably triumph in a two-way run-off in January.

"I know I'm going to win this election ... but I know it's highly likely we'll go to a run-off," said Bachelet, adding that she doubted any world leader has ever won more than 50 percent of the vote in a field of four strong candidates.

Bachelet, a medical doctor and former defense minister and health minister, has seen support among potential voters drop to 39 percent from 45 percent a few months ago, but she rejected criticism that her campaign has been over-confident.

Tied for second place with about 20 percent each are two rightist opposition candidates, Joaquin Lavin and Sebastian Pinera, trailed by leftist Tomas Hirsch.

In a wide-ranging 90-minute breakfast with foreign correspondents, Bachelet spoke of reducing inequalities in Chilean society, former dictator Augusto Pinochet, and her experience as defense minister.

Bachelet, who has rarely spoken with the foreign press in the past year, said she would continue with popular fellow socialist President Ricardo Lagos' economic policies of fiscal discipline and open markets, but wants to improve education and social programs to reduce the gap between rich and poor.

"People want a society that is not only successful but that also has a lot more sense of community ... that does a better job of protecting those left behind," she said.

Since Chile returned to democracy in 1990 after Pinochet's 17-year rule, poverty levels have dropped to one of the lowest in the region and Chile, rich in copper, timber and other raw materials, has thrived on open-market policies and free trade agreements.

Chile seems much closer to becoming a developed country compared with its neighbors.

"Globalization is a fact and it also opens opportunities for us," said Bachelet, signaling she would continue to pursue free trade even though other leftist Latin American governments have turned away from an Americas-wide free trade pact.

Bachelet said justice has been "slow but steady" for Pinochet, who just turned 90 and faces dozens of accusations of torture and assassination during his regime. She said his arrest this week in a tax fraud case and a human rights case shows Chile's democracy has matured.

Many Chileans were loyal to Pinochet for years, not believing the human rights accusations or defending them as necessary in a war against Communism.

Bachelet said the tax fraud charges, which legal experts say are much easier to prove than responsibility in human rights abuses, had opened people's eyes.

"A lot of people changed their view of what happened in Chile. ... I believe that a huge majority of people now know who Pinochet really was and I believe that's good for Chile," Bachelet said.

Bachelet, whose charisma and personal history as someone who was tortured and exiled under the military dictatorship, said her experience as an unlikely defense minister had taught her negotiating skills that will help her improve relations with Chile's neighbors, especially Bolivia and Peru, which are historically resentful of their wealthier neighbor.

"Imagine when they named me defense minister ... I was a woman, a Socialist, separated, agnostic, all the sins together ... there could have been a lot of mistrust from the commanders in chief," Bachelet said, referring to Chile's conservative military establishment.

But she said that with open, direct communication she built respect and trust with the military that lives on to this day.

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Socialist Bachelet Leads In Chile Elections

-tosh: December 12, 2005

Looks like she really is gonna win this thing. Fantastic!

 -Reuters: December 11, 2005

Socialist Bachelet leads in Chile elections Socialist Michelle Bachelet, expected to become Chile's first woman president, was leading with 44.76 percent of the vote in elections on Sunday, based on a count of 12.7 percent of the votes.

The tally by the government Electoral Service showed rightist candidate Sebastian Pinera was in second place with 26.70 percent of the vote, followed by Joaquin Lavin, also from the right, with 23.52 percent.

Tomas Hirsch, from the far-left, had 4.96 percent of the vote.

Bachelet, of the center-left coalition that has governed Chile since the 1990 fall of Augusto Pinochet's military dictatorship, is not expected to win more than 50 percent of the valid votes cast.

That means she will likely face her closest contender in a run-off election on Jan. 15.

"I decided to vote in these elections because it is a historic event where for the first time ever there is a great chance of a woman being elected president," said Luis, a 19-year-old who voted for the first time in Renca, a working-class neighborhood of Santiago.

"I wanted to be a player in writing Chile's future history," he said.

Bachelet, who was tortured and exiled during Pinochet's rule, has pledged to overhaul Chile's private pension system and continue the liberal social programs and free-market economic policies of her mentor, President Ricardo Lagos.

Bachelet, who is separated from her husband, is a mother of three who represents a shift of values in this traditionally conservative, Catholic country of 16 million people where divorce was legalized only last year.