CHILE: SOCIALIST MICHELLE BACHELET WINS RUNOFF VOTE TO BECOME CHILE'S FIRST WOMAN PRESIDENT.

Michelle Bachelet, a 54-year-old pediatrician from the Partido Socialista (PS), won Chile's Jan. 15 presidential runoff against billionaire businessman Sebastian Pinera of the center-right Renovacion Nacional (RN) with a lead of seven percentage points. This will make the former health and defense minister the first woman president in Chilean history, a victory made all the more poignant because Bachelet was also a political prisoner and in exile during the regime of former dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990). Her inauguration is set for March 11, when she will take over from her former boss, President Ricardo Lagos (2000-2006), who was constitutionally barred from seeking a second consecutive term.

Four more years of Concertacion rule

With 99.71% of ballots counted, Bachelet brought in 53.49% of the vote, with 3,712,587 voters checking her name. Pinera received 46.50% or 3,227,395 votes. Pinera conceded the night of Jan. 15.

Bachelet's triumph brought her more votes than Lagos received in 2000 (see NotiSur, 2000-01-21), and their Concertacion coalition also got 1.7% more votes than it received last December (see NotiSur, 2005-12-16).

Bachelet served at the head of two ministries in the Lagos administration, first in the Ministry of Health and later in the Ministry of Defense, the latter being another gender first (see NotiSur, 2002-01-11). Her background as the child of a military man has often aided in her management of the armed forces.

Bachelet ran under the banner of the incumbent Concertacion coalition, which brings together left-of-center and centrist parties like the PS, the Partido por la Democracia (PPD), and the Partido Democrata Cristiano (PDC). Pinera represented the conservative Alianza por Chile, the coalition of his RN and the Union Democrata Independiente (UDI). Although UDI candidate Joaquin Lavin joined Pinera's runoff campaign as soon as he was knocked out of the first round, Jan. 16 estimates indicated that more than 125,000 of the votes he received did not transfer to Pinera.

UDI and RN figures criticized Lagos for "interfering" in the electoral process. In the last days of his campaign, Pinera called on Lagos to stay out of the campaign. "Presidente, stop intervening in the election!" Pinera shouted to a crowd of supporters on Jan. 11. But the cry echoed more like a cry of desperation, as when, two days earlier, Pinera tried to minimize Bachelet's ability to speak five languages, saying what was important was to speak "the language that interests Chileans." In addition to Spanish, Bachelet can speak English, French, German, and Portuguese and reportedly has some skill with Russian.

Exit polls showed that a slightly higher percentage of men than women, less than 1%, voted for Bachelet, although over 400,000 more women than men, some 5.8% of the total, voted, meaning the absolute number of women's votes for her far exceeded men's votes.

During the campaign, Bachelet enjoyed something like incumbency, with the general approval for Lagos' administration transferring to her. Voters didn't give her the 60% to 70% of the vote that recent polls on approval ratings have given to Lagos, but she did bring in more votes than her predecessor did in...

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