The day after becoming the first woman ever to win a presidential election in South America, Michelle Bachelet shared breakfast with current Chilean President Ricardo Lagos, marking a political transition and cultural shift that has inspired high hopes and expectations.
Bachelet, the candidate for the centre-left coalition that has governed Chile since the end of the Augusto Pinochet dictatorship in 1990, emerged triumphant in Sunday’s presidential run-off vote with a healthy majority over her right-wing opponent, billionaire businessman Sebastián Piñera.
”It will be a privilege for me to end my term [on March 11] by handing power over to a woman like Michelle Bachelet,” said Lagos at the end of the breakfast meeting held at the president-elect’s home, where they discussed the transfer of office and the tasks to be taken on by the new administration.
”We talked about how to handle this transition period in the most harmonious way possible,” said Bachelet, indirectly responding to comments made by some local observers regarding potential competition for the spotlight between the president-elect and the outgoing president.
The fourth and final vote count, announced by Deputy Interior Minister Jorge Correa on Monday, confirmed the 54-year-old socialist physician’s victory with 53,49% of the valid ballots cast, against 46,5% for Piñera.
Bachelet’s will be the fourth consecutive administration headed by the Concertación por la Democracia, a centre-left coalition made up by the Socialist Party, the Christian Democratic Party, the Party for Democracy and the Social Democratic Radical Party.
The first post-dictatorship transition government was led by Social Democrat Patricio Aylwin (1990-94). He was followed in office by fellow Social Democrat Eduardo Frei Ruiz Tagle (1994-2000), who was in turn succeeded by Lagos, a moderate Socialist. The Chilean Constitution prevents the re-election of presidents to a second term.
With Bachelet’s victory, the Concertación has not only further consolidated its place as the most stable political alliance in Chilean history, but has also made history by giving this country of 15,6-million its first woman president.
”I never would have dreamed that this could happen,” university student Karina Meléndez told IPS outside San Francisco Plaza Hotel on the Alameda, just minutes before the president-elect began her acceptance speech, echoing the same thoughts.
”Who would have thought 20, 10 or even five years ago that Chile would elect a woman as president? It seemed highly unlikely, but it was possible. It is possible, because the citizens of the country wanted it. Because democracy allowed it,” Bachelet declared.
Bachelet is the first woman ever to be elected president by popular vote in South America. Argentina’s MarÃÂa Estela MartÃÂnez, better known to the world as Isabel Perón, took over the presidency upon the death of her husband, Juan Domingo Perón, in 1974, and was overthrown by a military coup two years later.
In Bolivia, then Chamber of Deputies Speaker Lidia Gueiler was appointed interim president in November 1979, then was removed from office by a military junta in July 1980.
Only three other women have ever won presidential elections in the Americas, and all rose to power as the wives of well-known figures: Violeta Barrios in Nicaragua, (1990-1997), widow of journalist Pedro JoaquÃÂn Chamorro; Janet Jagan in Guyana (1997-1999), widow of former leader Cheddi Jagan; and Mireya Mosco in Panama (1999-2004), widow of strongman Arnulfo Arias.
”We are making history, not only because Michelle is a woman, but because she represents a new form of leadership, from the generation that was formed politically under the [Pinochet] dictatorship, and wants to innovate with citizens’ participation,” said Meléndez, a sociology student.
While Bachelet took almost 46% of the votes in the December 11 elections, she did not capture the absolute majority needed to win the presidency in the first round, leading to the run-off against second-placed Piñera. In the legislative elections held simultaneously, the centre-left coalition handily defeated the opposition right-wing alliance by earning 51,8%.
In the second round of voting on Sunday, however, Bachelet not only won a larger percentage of votes than the ruling coalition captured during the legislative elections, but also outdid her opponent by a margin of 7%, a more substantial defeat than that dealt by Lagos, with 51% of the ballots, to right-wing candidate JoaquÃÂn LavÃÂn, with 48% in the presidential runoff of January 2000. — IPS
France’s first female president?
She is elegant, self-assured, strong on what interests her (families, schools, the environment), sensibly vague on the rest (foreign affairs, the economy). And according to three polls this month, she could be France’s first female president, writes Jon Henley in Paris.
”The china in a bull-shop”, as one commentator called her this week, is Ségolène Royal, a former minister who now heads the regional government of Poitou-Charentes and, in a field of ageing and depressingly familiar male faces, is suddenly looking like the obvious Socialist challenger to conservative Nicolas Sarkozy in next year’s presidential poll.
”It’s early days yet,” cautioned a leading political analyst, Pascal Perrineau. ”She’s certainly far more than just a media darling; there’s real popular approval in these polls. But the test will be to move on from what you might call ‘paper popularity’.”
The polls look unambiguous. Surveys by Louis Harris, TNS-Sofres and Ifop show that up to 53% of the French think Royal, a 52-year-old mother of four, has ”the stature of a president of the Republic”.
”She’s a very serious operator,” said a senior Socialist who asked not to be named. ”A political animal. If she runs for president, she’ll go all the way.” — Â