Michelle Bachelet has a deep resume: daughter of a general tortured to death for opposing a coup, leftist exile during the ensuing bloody dictatorship, pediatrician, Cabinet member, mother, president, head of the U.N. women’s agency.
Now she’s coming back home after her stint at the United Nations, and if Chile‘s left has its way, she will add another item to that list: savior.
Bachelet, 62, who announced her return Friday night, is widely seen as the center-left opposition’s only hope of winning the Nov. 17 presidential election and taking power back from the conservative establishment ushered in when Sebastian Pinera won the presidency ins 2010 after she left office.
The popularity of this Andean country’s only woman president is high. A recent poll by CEP Estudios Publicos consultancy said 54 percent of voters favor her.
In announcing the end of her work at the U.N., Bachelet said only that she was going back to Chile and gave no specifics on timing.
She also did not mention the presidential race despite intense pressure in Chile for her to make her plans known — although there is a widespread expectation that she will run.
Her silence has frustrated not only her opponents but especially her sympathizers.
“We don’t have a plan B. I’m serious. In the opposition we’re just not prepared for a negative response from Bachelet,” said Jaime Quintana, president of the Liberal Party for Democracy, one of the parties in the center-left coalition.
Whoever runs will have to be ready to tackle mounting social demands and frequent protests that already troubled Bachelet during her presidency and have harried Pinera even more. Pinera is the most unpopular president since Chile returned to democracy in 1990 after the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
Chile is respected for its fast-growing economy and transparent institutions. The country has continued to grow under Pinera and enjoys a record-low jobless rate, but it also has the worst inequality rate among the 34 countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Millions of Chileans have participated in protests demanding a wider distribution of Chile‘s copper riches, free education and the return of ancestral lands to Mapuche Indians in a southern region where members of Chile‘s …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Fox World News