SANTIAGO, Chile – In electing socialist Michelle Bachelet the nation’s first woman president, Chilean voters made history Sunday. And then they spent Sunday night reveling in it.
“Chile has a woman president! Chile has a woman president!” shouted Gilda Alcaino, joining tens of thousands of other Bachelet fans who gathered in downtown Santiago to await Bachelet’s victory speech.
The win was in line with the final pre-election surveys. But the decisive margin still surprised many Chileans accustomed to tight battles for Chile’s mostly centrist voters.
Bachelet, a pediatrician and former political prisoner, won 53.5 percent of the vote in a runoff with Sebastian Pinera, a conservative businessman who argued that Chile needed a change from the center-left coalition that has governed since 1990. Pinera conceded shortly after the polls closed.
“Who would have thought this possible … that Chile would elect a woman president?” Bachelet said over the bleat of air horns and the screams and chants of her admirers. “It seemed so difficult, but it was possible. It is possible. Because of the will of the citizens. Because democracy allowed it to happen.”
Praising democracy was a common theme. Bachelet invoked it several times. President Ricardo Lagos praised it in comments throughout the day. Pinera extolled it in his concession speech. And Bachelet’s supporters, some of whom suffered personally under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, painted her victory as the only hope for democracy.
They see her rise as a repudiation of Chile’s far right and of Pinochet, who led Chile’s military dictatorship starting from a bloody coup in 1973 until surrendering power in 1990.
Bachelet’s Air Force officer father was arrested by the regime, tortured and died in 1974 in a military prison.
Bachelet and her mother were detained for nearly a month before living in exile for several of the harshest years of the regime.
“You know I have not had an easy life. But then, who has had an easy life?” she said in her remarks. “Because I was a victim of hatred, I have dedicated my life to refuting hatred.”
Bachelet’s supporters suggest the margin of victory will allow her to do what the current socialist president, Ricardo Lagos, could not: Move Chile to the left.
“Pinochet is gone, but today the owners of the big businesses, of the mass media are the same ones who served under Pinochet,” said Hugo Cardenas, a 41-year-old painter who wore a Patti Smith T-shirt and confetti in his hair. “Lagos handled them well. He did things without provoking them. But now I think Bachelet will be able to move to the left – not too much – on issues like health care and education.”
Under Concertacion, a coalition of Socialists and Christian Democrats, Chile has enjoyed strong and consistent economic growth with its policies of fiscal conservatism, free trade and expanded social spending. But unemployment and inequality remain high. Poverty is entrenched in many communities. And some voters suspicious of Lagos’ free-market positions are pushing for the state to do more.
If Bachelet does move government policy to the left, she will find herself in growing company in the region.
Her election follows Evo Morales’ in Bolivia last month, not to mention the rise of left-of-center candidates in Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil since 2002.
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“This is a victory for the people, for the workers,” said Alcaino, 48, a construction engineer. “This is a victory for Salvador Allende!”
References to Allende may fire up Bachelet’s socialist base, but they give the Pinera side the chills. Allende’s ouster as president and death in the 1973 coup ushered in a repressive dictatorship that killed or disappeared at least 3,000 people. Yet many Chileans remain grateful that Pinochet removed Allende from power and eventually imposed many of the free-market policies that opened up Chile’s economy.
These Chileans fear that although Bachelet served in the Lagos government, as health minister and defense minister, she will abandon his centrist policies.
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Bachelet, who made a televised date by phone to have breakfast with Lagos on Monday, gave no indication that major changes are in store.
“This is not the first time, not will it be the last, that Chileans have astonished the world,” she said in here speech. “Following 17 years of dictatorship we moved exemplarily into democracy. … We built a vibrant economy that many would like to emulate. We Chileans are proud of what we have accomplished, and we are going to continue on this path.”
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PHOTOS (from KRT Photo Service, 202-383-6099): CHILE-ELECTION
AP-NY-01-15-06 2202EST
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