Bachelet Makes History

MICHELLE BACHELET may have been elected Chile's first female president in history this January, but by June it was clear that her honeymoon period was very definitely over. Her nascent government faced its first major challenge with riots, the largest strike in Chilean history, and a countrywide boycott by more than a million students. Around 400 people were arrested during protests by students demanding free use of public transport, lower fees for college entrance exams, and a voice in government policy. Ms Bachelet managed to quell the crisis by offering the students concessions worth $200m, but her critics argue she caved in to too easily, with one paper dubbing her tactics the 'mummy' approach.

Male-dominated country

Ms Bachelet's empathetic approach is a novelty for Chileans used to the ultra-conservative country being dominated by men. Indeed, her victory marked a sea-change for the Latin American country, which occupies a long coastal strip between the Andes mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Bordering Argentina to the east, Bolivia to the northeast, and Peru to the north, although Chile is about three times the size of the UK, it has less than a quarter of the British population - around 16,000,000 citizens.
First inhabited around 10,000 years ago, when the Spanish conquistadors arrived from Peru in their quest for gold, they encountered hundreds of thousands of Araucanian Indians in central and southern Chile, who mainly survived off hunting and farming, and were not completely subjugated until the early 1880s.
Although Chile declared its independence in 1810, decisive victory over the Spanish was not achieved until 1818, when the country was proclaimed an independent republic. Political revolt, though, brought little social change and, greatly influenced by family politics and the Roman Catholic Church (90 percent of Chileans consider themselves Catholic and 10 percent Protestant), 19th century Chilean society preserved the essence of the stratified colonial social structure.
A three-year-old Marxist government of Salvador Allende was overthrown in 1973 by a dictatorial military regime led by Augusto Pinochet, who ruled until a freely elected president was installed in 1990. Since then, the country has increasingly assumed a regional leadership role by virtue of its status as a stable democracy. It has benefited from a sound economic policy, maintained steadfastly since the 1980s, which have contributed to steady growth and have helped secure the country's commitment to democratic and representative government. Often described as the economic miracle of Latin America, its economy expanded by more than 5 percent last year.

The first lady

Then, in January this year, the country's political traditions were broken when its first female president was elected. On the volatile continent of Latin America, only Guyana, geographically part of South America, but culturally closer to the Caribbean, has elected a woman leader. The victory of Michelle Bachelet was hailed by outgoing president Ricardo Lagos as an 'historic triumph'.
Ms Bachelet is a separated mother of three and a self-described agnostic, which sets her apart in a predominantly conservative and Catholic country. A polyglot, she speaks Spanish, English, German, Portuguese and French.
A member of the Socialist Party that forms part of the ruling coalition Democratic Concertation, Ms Bachelet won a runoff election with 53 percent of the votes, defeating businessman Sebastian Pinera of the National Renewal party, who won 47 per cent of the votes.
Her victory reflects the rapid pace of change in what has long been regarded as the most conservative society in Latin America. Divorce was legalised in 2004, and a mere four percent of the country's senators are women.
Unsurprisingly, Ms Bachelet sees a changing landscape on the horizon for Chile, and wants to make herself a lightning rod for that change. 'We have a mature, democratic society that believes men and women can hold responsibility,' she said upon her election. The conservative alliance which she leads has held power since the return of democracy in 1990. While Ms Bachelet has pledged to carry on the tradition of maintaining strong economic growth, she has also pledged change. She is keen to bridge the gap between rich and poor, allowing everyone in Chile to benefit from the economy's growth and the country's political stability.

Scandalous inequalities

Ms Bachelet does not regard her status as a single mother of three in strongly Catholic Chile as a problem. Last September, Bachelet aligned herself with Chile's leading cardinal Archbishop Francisco Javier Errázuriz of Santiago, when he dampened Chile's independence anniversary celebrations by branding the country's unequal distribution of income as 'scandalous'. Certainly, Chile's economy remains the most successful in Latin America, with average incomes having risen sharply and great progress being made towards political stability as well as economic development since the collapse of the Pinochet regime. But the Cardinal argued that reducing the gap between the rich and poor must be the overriding priority of the new government.
President Ricardo Lagos conceded that although his left-of-centre government had made a big effort to tackle persistent poverty, there was still much to be done. His stated aim of 'growth with equality' had not been achieved, with the latter being sacrificed to the former.
That is an issue that Ms Bachelet hopes to rectify. At 54, many compare her programme of social outreach to the poor favourably with that of Eva Peron half a century ago. Seen as an outsider unsympathetic to traditional political arrangements, she announced soon after her election that at least half of her cabinet would be female. She is said to be focused on human rights, social justice and limiting the powers of police and intelligence agencies.
She has even been described by the press as Chile's answer to Nelson Mandela for her support for reconciliation with factions from the military regime. In her victory speech in January, she said, 'Because I was a victim of hate, I have dedicated my life to reversing that hate and transforming it into understanding, into tolerance, and why not, into love. You can love justice and at the same time be generous.'
Bishop Alejandro Goic Karmelic of Rancagua, president of the Chilean Bishops' conference, said that in her speech Bachelet 'revealed part of her personal life and demonstrated her deep capacity of love and reconciliation with regard to the personal drama she had undergone. She expressed what she felt so dearly, and for us, that is an expression of faith.'
Some have been surprised that such a reconciliatory stance should come from someone so deeply affected by the military regime. The fourth president from the Concertacion, Ms Bachelet is perceived as the most radical, having been politicised by 1973's military coup. Her father, an air force general, was arrested after Pinochet's take-over for collaborating with Salvador Allende's left-wing government, and died of a heart attack after torture.
Michelle Bachelet took up secret work for the Socialist Youth. She was only 23 when the DINA intelligence service tortured her and her mother along with thousands of middle-ranking Socialists, before the two women were allowed to flee the country in 1975.
Ms Bachelet returned in 1978 and, with the return to democracy in 1990, she worked in Chile's Health Ministry, while pursuing defence and strategic studies in Chile and Washington. Ms Bachelet only came into the public limelight in 2000 when she was made health minister. Two years later, she took over the defence portfolio, and played a key role in reconciliation with the military, culminating in the historic 2003 declaration by Gen. Juan Emilio Cheyre, that 'never again' (nunca mas) would the military subvert democracy in Chile.

The Church's role

Chile legalised divorce in 2004, with its civil marriage law coming into force in November of that year, to the outrage of the country's bishops. In a public declaration, the permanent committee of the bishops' conference, chaired by Cardinal Francisco Javier Errázuriz, appealed to married couples who have separated 'because life together had become impossible,' to take advantage of the new conciliation initiatives that would be offered to them. If these failed, the bishops advised the couples to turn to the Church for support and hope. Such is the extent of the Chilean Church's impact on society that when the divorce law was being drafted, the Church's perspective was clearly taken into account, with the creation of conciliation and mediation services.
While Chile enjoys one of the highest standards of living in Latin America, it also suffers from widespread social deprivation and shocking levels of inequality. The Church still plays a prominent role in defending the country's poor and disenfranchised. Earlier this year, the bishops' conference re-launched its 'Vicariate of Solidarity' - the human rights agency that stood up to the Pinochet regime, defending victims of political persecution in the years after his 1973 coup - to help all those who have failed to benefit from the years of rapid economic growth since the return of democratic government in 1990.
To create the new vicariate, the Church merged its social assistance and trade union departments. Fr. Rodrigo Tupper, who heads the new vicariate, said, 'We no longer have torture in our country, the kind of thing that many people didn't want to see, or refused to see at the time. But today there are still many situations that we don't want to see, or that we refuse to see, which are crying out for a solution.'

Advocate of reconciliation

Although she considers herself an agnostic, Ms Bachelet clearly sees a role for the Church in her vision of improving the social welfare of Chile's deprived. The day after her election victory in January, she received Cardinal Errazuriz and members of the Chilean bishops' conference at her residence. After the meeting, the Cardinal said that Ms Bachelet had 'suffered hate, but she preferred to overcome this hate through comprehension, tolerance and, as she says, love'. Welcoming her victory, he called her 'a symbol of the re-encounter among Chileans, a sign of great hope and a reconciled country'.
Ms Bachelet demonstrated how serious she was in her campaign for social reform with the announcement of a raft of 36 measures for her first 100 days in office, in the areas of employment, opportunities for women, education, health, social security and the environment. The measures included free health care for all patients older than 60 through the national health-insurance system, drafting a code of good labour conduct and non-discrimination for the public sector, subsidies for preschool education for the children of the poorest 40 percent of the population, increasing preschool and nursery installations for families of working women, and increasing grants for the university education of students from low-income families.
It is an ambitious programme but, if successful, it should ensure Ms Bachelet doesn't have to 'mummy' her country through a repeat of this summer's protests.