Michelle Bachelet regains Chile presidency
SANTIAGO, Chile – Chile’s once and future leader Michelle Bachelet easily won Sunday’s presidential runoff, returning center-left parties to power by promising profound social changes in response to years of street protests.
Bachelet won 62 percent of the vote, the most decisive victory in eight decades of Chilean elections. Her conservative rival, Evelyn Matthei only got 37 percent of the vote and conceded defeat in the worst performance for the right in two decades.
Bachelet needs the momentum of her resounding victory to strengthen her mandate and try to overcome congressional opposition to fulfill her promises.
The 62-year old pediatrician ended her 2006-2010 presidency with 84 percent approval ratings despite failing to achieve any major changes. This time however, activists are vowing to hold her to her promises, which include raising corporate taxes to 25 percent from 20 percent to help fund an education overhaul and changing the dictatorship-era constitution, a difficult goal given congressional opposition.
“The social and political conditions are here and at last the moment has arrived,” Bachelet told more than 10,000 cheering supporters gathered for her victory speech.
“If I’m here it’s because we believe that a Chile for everyone is necessary. It won’t be easy, but when has it been easy to change the world?”
Many Chileans complain that policies imposed by Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s 1973-1990 dictatorship have kept wealth and power in few hands. Pinochet effectively ended land reform by selling off the nation’s water, and he preserved the best educations for elites by ending the central control and funding of public schools.
Opinion polls pointed early to a bruising defeat for Matthei, a former labor minister, because of her past support for Pinochet and her ties to outgoing President Sebastian Pinera. Pinera, a billionaire entrepreneur, was Chile’s first center-right president since democracy’s return and is the most unpopular, with just 34 percent support in the latest CEP poll.