Santiago, Chile – At a time when Latin America is clearly tilting left, Chileans appear to care less about ideology than about better pensions – one of the many goals shared by the socialist pediatrician and the conservative billionaire in Sunday’s presidential runoff.
Polls indicated Michelle Bachelet, representing Chile’s governing center-left coalition, held the lead over Sebastian Pinera, a Harvard-trained economist who built an empire pioneering the credit-card business in Chile. If elected, Bachelet would be Chile’s first woman president.
Neither candidate was expected to bring much change to the free-market policies that have made Chile one of Latin America’s most prosperous countries.
Even the legacy of Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s 1973-90 dictatorship seemed largely irrelevant, coming up only once in recent days when both candidates agreed he was one of Chile’s worst presidents.
Despite their differing political affiliations, there was little to distinguish the two candidates except perhaps their attitudes toward the rise of powerful leftist leaders in some of Chile’s Latin American neighbors.
They also have different approaches to labor legislation, with Pinera proposing more relaxed rules that he says encourage employment. Bachelet says any legislation should consider workers’ rights and interests first.
Both candidates promised to reduce unemployment, improve public health and education, and fight rising crime in large cities.
And both said they would reform the former state pension system that Chile privatized in 1981, reflecting a popular consensus that the companies administering the funds have been getting abnormally high commissions from the 7.5 million workers enrolled in the system.
Neither Bachelet nor Pinera spelled out exactly how they would fix that, although they agreed on the need to encourage a greater competition in the business, probably by creating more funds than the existing six.
Bachelet said she would appoint a commission to draft legislation within six months proposing changes to ensure decent, financially sustainable pensions. Pinera proposed to allow banks and insurance companies to enter the competition for business.
The average salary of workers contributing to the system is $675 a month, while the average pension is $360 a month. That is “not satisfactory,” says the system’s top government regulator, Guillermo Larrain, who accuses the pension companies of making “abnormally high profits.” There does not appear to be much consensus for radical changes in Chile.
While outgoing President Ricardo Lagos and Bachelet belong to the same Socialist Party as Salvador Allende, the president ousted by Pinochet in a bloody coup, the party has embraced free-market economics to radically cut inflation and poverty levels, boost foreign trade and foster growth of about 6 percent a year. Lagos leaves office with a 70 percent approval rating.
Once inaugurated on March 11, Chile’s new president will need to be a nimble diplomat, given the election of leftist leader Evo Morales as Bolivia’s president and the rise in popularity of left-leaning former army officer Ollanta Humala in Peru’s presidential race.
Both are strident nationalists in countries that have had bitter border disputes with Chile and where resentment against their more prosperous neighbor is strong. Both also count Venezuela’s populist president, Hugo Chavez, a harsh critic of the United States, as an ally.
“There is a trend toward the left and populism that causes problems,” Pinera said in a televised debate. “The future president will have to face this with firmness and defend Chile’s interests with energy.” Bachelet had a different view.
“We shouldn’t take Latin America back to the Cold War. Chavez, Morales, they are presidents elected by their peoples. Chile must have relationships with all of them,” she said.
Bachelet, who won the respect of Chile’s generals as defense minister in 2002-04, says she harbors no rancor toward Pinochet despite being jailed and tortured during his coup.
Hoping to become the country’s first female president, she promised to appoint women to half the Cabinet posts.
The mother of three also made clear she would be just as comfortable being in charge as Pinera, whose companies employ more than 50,000 Chileans.
“I am going to take over from the very beginning,” she told the newspaper La Segunda. “As defense minister, I worked only with men and no one ever put my authority in doubt.”
