SANTIAGO, Chile — Chile’s powerful earthquake buried people and homes in a broad swath of the coastal south, but it may also have given the country’s new right-wing coalition government a chance to entomb the ghosts of the former dictator, Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
The Feb. 27 quake struck during a pivotal transition, just as Sebastian Piñera, a billionaire businessman and former senator, prepared to assume the presidency as the first elected right-wing leader in Chile in 50 years. When he takes office today, he will be the first president from the right of any kind since Pino chet stepped down in 1990, returning Chile to democracy after a bloody dictatorship.
Piñera, who campaigned on a platform of job creation and law and order, may now have a freer hand to crack down on delinquency and drug trafficking.
