March 6, 2006. Copyright 2006, Graphic News. All rights reserved

ChileÕs first woman president sworn in
By Joanna Griffin

LONDON, March 6, Graphic News:  As a leader who breaks with tradition, Michelle Bachelet ticks all the right boxes: this month the socialist, agnostic single mother becomes the first woman president of Chile -- a country that would rate high on many lists of worldÕs Òmost Catholic and conservativeÓ.

Soon after she was confirmed winner of the run-off poll on January 15, Bachelet named the 10 men and 10 women who would make up her cabinet, fulfilling a campaign pledge to put women in key political posts, and to make equality a priority of her government.

Even so, her appointment is less radical than it seems: she has served in two ministerial posts and is the fourth consecutive president of the leftwing coalition that has ruled the South American nation for 16 years. To many, Bachelet embodies the passionate belief in democracy that has taken root in the years since the Pinochet dictatorship.

To a people familiar with the macho excesses of its politicians, she must seem a breath of fresh air, apparently driven less by a thirst for power than a hunger to improve society. In addition, the human rights activist has first-hand experience of ChileÕs darkest days.

Born on September 29, 1951 in Santiago, Veronica Michelle Bachelet was the daughter of an anthropologist and an air force general. After President Salvador Allende was toppled in the military coup of 1973, her father Alberto was held in custody and tortured for refusing to go into exile. He subsequently died of a heart attack.

Bachelet and her mother were also tortured before being exiled to Australia. From there they went to East Germany, where Bachelet trained as a paediatrician and met architect Jorge Davalos, with whom she would have two children. In 1979 the lifelong socialist returned home and began working as a clandestine human rights activist. In 1992 she had a third child with physician Anibal Hernandez, but the relationship did not last.

With democracy restored in 1990, Bachelet began to climb through Socialist ranks: in 1996 she lost her bid to become mayor of a Santiago suburb, but three years later she played a key role in Ricardo LagosÕ campaign for the presidential nomination of the Coalition of Parties for Democracy. He rewarded her with the health portfolio, and then rejected her offer to resign when she failed to meet targets on hospital waiting lists months later.

In 2002 the woman whose own family had been so blighted by the military dictatorship became ChileÕs defence minister -- the first woman in her country to hold the post and one of only a few in the world. That fact alone meant that Bachelet drew crowds as she travelled through the country, but it was her personal charisma and rapport with ordinary Chileans that led party colleagues to persuade her to seek the presidency on their behalf.

After failing to win an outright majority in elections in 2005, Bachelet secured 53 percent of the vote in a run-off poll against billionaire businessman Sebastian Pinera. She takes the helm at a time when ChileÕs economy is booming but its worst-off citizens are sinking further into poverty. Bachelet has promised to reverse this slide, and has signalled her intention to combat unemployment and rising crime by creating equal opportunities for Chileans from childhood on.
/ENDS