Santiago, Chile – Michelle Bachelet, a Socialist, a doctor, and a former political prisoner and exile, on Sunday became the first woman to be elected president of Chile, decisively defeating Sebastian Pinera, a conservative billionaire businessman.
With the vote count nearly complete, Bachelet, the candidate of a left-center coalition led by Socialists and Christian Democrats, had 53.5 percent of the vote. That assured another four years in power for the coalition, which has governed Chile without interruption since Gen. Augusto Pinochet was forced to step down in 1990. It also meant continued frustration for right-wing parties, still stained by their association with the 17 years of the Pinochet dictatorship.
“I want to congratulate Michelle Bachelet for her triumph today, and not just because she is our country’s first woman president,” Pinera said in a concession speech early this evening, barely two hours after the polls had closed. But he also chose to take note of the difference between his “Christian humanism” and Bachelet’s acknowledged agnosticism, closing his remarks by saying “May God bless Michelle Bachelet and our nation.” Bachelet, a single mother who has juggled her career and the demands of raising three children ever since she entered government service little more than a decade ago, is the first woman in the region to win an election without an assist from the coattails of a more famous spouse.
Though doubts had been expressed about whether Chilean men would be willing to vote for a woman, Bachelet’s margin of victory exceeded that of her predecessor and mentor, Ricardo Lagos, six years ago. He won narrowly, with 51.2 percent of the vote, and by an overall difference much smaller than the half-million votes that separated Bachelet and Pinera.
The tally this time suggested that class might have trumped gender. In some northern copper-mining regions, where union sentiment is strong and suspicion of Pinera’s wealth and support for untrammeled free-market policies also runs high, Bachelet won more than 60 percent of the vote. In more prosperous areas, her support was generally weaker among both men and women.
“This isn’t the first time, or the last, that Chileans are startling the world,” Bachelet, her voice hoarse, said Sunday night in her victory speech. She promised to be “a president for all women and all men” and to lead a government that will “aid those who have fallen behind” and inaugurate “a new style of politics, with more dialogue and participation.” Bachelet, who will be sworn in on March 11, is not the first woman to be elected president of a country in Latin America. Three widows of prominent political figures have preceded her: Violeta Chamorro in Nicaragua, Mireya Moscoso in Panama and Janet Jagan in Guyana.
Other women, such as Maria Estela Peron in Argentina and Lidia Gueiler in Bolivia, have come to power as a result of coups or other political turmoil.
Her victory marks a generational shift in her country’s politics. She will succeed Lagos, who is a dozen years older and – like his two predecessors – was already active in public life under the Popular Unity government of Salvador Allende. Allende was in power, from 1970 through 1973, when his government was overthrown in the military coup led by General Pinochet.
“Michelle Bachelet belongs to the generation that suffered the most after the coup,” said Andrea Insunza, co-author of “Bachelet: The Unofficial Story,” a biography of Bachelet that was recently published here. “The majority of those imprisoned, killed, tortured and exiled came from that group, which is why I say her election represents the triumph of history’s defeated.” In a first round of balloting last month, in which four candidates were competing, Bachelet won 45.9 percent of the vote but fell short of the majority she needed. Pinera, describing himself as a new and more compassionate breed of conservative, had pinned his hopes for victory in the runoff on persuading Christian Democrats to abandon the governing coalition, but failed despite his emphasis on moral and religious values.