President-elect of Chile, Michelle Bachelet
Felicitaciones a los chilenos
Congratulations to the Chilean people, and to President-elect Bachelet.
Chilean Voters Return a Former President to Power
Ms. Bachelet received about 62 percent of the vote, compared with 38 percent for her opponent, Evelyn Matthei, according to preliminary results from the Chilean electoral service. Ms. Matthei conceded defeat.
Ms. Bachelet, who was widely admired as president from 2006 to 2010, when her policies helped shield Chile from a sharp downturn during the global financial crisis, has put forth an ambitious package of proposals that would, among other things, increase corporate taxes, expand access to higher education and overhaul the 1980 Constitution, which dates to the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
Her platform contrasted sharply with the anti-tax views of Ms. Matthei, a former labor minister who belongs to the most conservative wing of the governing coalition of President Sebastián Piñera, a right-wing billionaire. Ghosts of the Pinochet era hung over this year’s race; unlike Mr. Piñera himself, Ms. Matthei voted in favor of General Pinochet in the 1988 plebiscite that opened the way for democracy to be re-established in Chile.
The coalition that led her to victory is the Nueva Mayoría
The New Majority (Spanish: Nueva Mayoría) is a Chilean electoral coalition created in 2013 and composed mainly of center-left political parties supporting the presidential candidacy of Michelle Bachelet in the 2013 election.
The coalition consists of the four principal parties of the Concert of Parties for Democracy, namely, the Socialist Party of Chile (PS), the Christian Democratic Party (Chile) (PDC), the Party for Democracy (PPD) and the Social Democrat Radical Party (PRSD). In addition, the New Majority also includes the Communist Party of Chile (PCCh), the Citizen Left (IC), the Broad Social Movement (MAS) and centre-left independents
Queue exploding heads of wing-nuttia here in the U.S.
As a long time follower of Chilean politics, I am elated. I lost friends and comrades there during the time of the dictatorship, and am proud to see Bachelet in office again – for she understands clearly the importance of social democracy.
Under the fascism of Pinochet regime the Bachelet family underwent detention and torture, and she lost her father as a result.
Facing growing food shortages, the government of Salvador Allende placed Bachelet’s father in charge of the Food Distribution Office. When General Augusto Pinochet suddenly came to power via the 11 September 1973 coup d’état, Bachelet’s father was detained at the Air War Academy under charges of treason. Following months of daily torture at Santiago’s Public Prison, he suffered a cardiac arrest that resulted in his death on 12 March 1974. In early January 1975, Bachelet and her mother were detained at their apartment by two DINA agents (one of them being Miguel Krassnoff), who blindfolded and drove them to Villa Grimaldi, a notorious secret detention center in Santiago, where they were separated and subjected to interrogation and torture. In 2013 Bachelet revealed she had been interrogated by DINA chief Manuel Contreras there. Some days later, Bachelet was transferred to Cuatro Álamos (“Four Poplars”) detention center, where she was held until the end of January. Thanks to sympathetic connections in the military, Bachelet was forced into exile to Australia, where her older brother, Alberto, had moved in 1969.[7] Of her torture, Bachelet said in 2004 that “it was nothing in comparison to what others suffered”. She was “yelled at using abusive language, shaken,” and both she and her mother where “threatened with the killing of the other.” She was “never tortured with electricity,” but she did see it being done to other prisoners.
Bachelet spent many years in exile, returning to Chile in 1979, where she still faced discrimination for her leftist politics.
She served as President of Chile from March 2006, to March 2010, the first woman ever elected to that office.
In March of 2013, Bachelet stepped down as the head of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, which was created in 2010.
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