Chile elected socialist Michelle Bachelet to be its first woman president on Sunday, making her only the second woman elected to head a South American state as Latin America cements a shift to the left.
With almost all votes counted, Bachelet, from Chile's ruling center-left coalition, won 53 percent of ballots cast while opposition candidate Sebastian Pinera took 47 percent, the government Electoral Service said.
Bachelet, 54, a medical doctor imprisoned and tortured during the 1973-1990 Augusto Pinochet dictatorship before living in exile abroad, will be the fourth consecutive president from the center-left alliance that has run Chile since 1990.
"Violence came into my life, destroying what I loved, because I was a victim of hate," Bachelet told tens of thousands of confetti-tossing supporters along the main boulevard in downtown Santiago. "I have dedicated my life to reversing that hate and converting it into understanding, tolerance and, why not say it, love."
"Who would have said, 10, 15 years ago, that a woman would be elected president," said Bachelet, a single mother of three.
As Bachelet ended her speech in a Santiago hotel, thousands of people outside started a carnival-like party, dancing and singing to the rhythm of a popular local tropical music band. Police said the celebrations were orderly.
A former defense minister, Bachelet is only the second woman elected to head a South American nation after Janet Jagan of Guyana was chosen to succeed her husband as president in 1997 after he died.
"I feel emotional, happy. We are breathing the air of liberty and unity," said Ana Paredes, 37, a hotel employee who said she spontaneously decided to join Bachelet revelers.
The celebration extended well into the night with jubilant supporters honking their car horns and shaking giant flags.
Bachelet, an agnostic with three children from two relationships, benefited from a shift to more secular values in Chile, which until recently had a reputation as one of the region's most socially conservative countries.
She pledged during her victory speech to bring more social equality to Chile by the time her four-year term ends in 2010, with social security and equal educational opportunities for all. "I want my government to be remembered as a government for everybody," she said.
She will join other leftist leaders in the region including Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and newly elected Evo Morales of Bolivia, but indicated she will not bring about radical change to the South American country of 16 million.
"We will continue to walk the same road," she said in her victory speech on Sunday, making it clear she intends to maintain the coalition's free-market economic policies that have turned Chile's economy into one of the region's strongest.
Political scientist Ricardo Israel said a main challenge for her will be to bring more women into public office, and to find a place for her social-democratic coalition within the range of leftist governments taking hold in Latin America.
Israel said she would have to balance the need to maintain good global relations, particularly with the US so Chile can keep benefiting from global free trade, while guaranteeing a steady natural gas supply from its neighbors.
RETHINK? The defense ministry and Navy Command Headquarters could take over the indigenous submarine project and change its production timeline, a source said Admiral Huang Shu-kuang’s (黃曙光) resignation as head of the Indigenous Submarine Program and as a member of the National Security Council could affect the production of submarines, a source said yesterday. Huang in a statement last night said he had decided to resign due to national security concerns while expressing the hope that it would put a stop to political wrangling that only undermines the advancement of the nation’s defense capabilities. Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Vivian Huang (黃珊珊) yesterday said that the admiral, her older brother, felt it was time for him to step down and that he had completed what he
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
CHINA REACTS: The patrol and reconnaissance plane ‘transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,’ the 7th Fleet said, while Taipei said it saw nothing unusual The US 7th Fleet yesterday said that a US Navy P-8A Poseidon flew through the Taiwan Strait, a day after US and Chinese defense heads held their first talks since November 2022 in an effort to reduce regional tensions. The patrol and reconnaissance plane “transited the Taiwan Strait in international airspace,” the 7th Fleet said in a news release. “By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations.” In a separate statement, the Ministry of National Defense said that it monitored nearby waters and airspace as the aircraft