RSS Feeds

Chile's Bachelet courts Communists for big reforms

Sunday - 5/5/2013, 1:31pm  ET

FILE - In this April 13, 2013 file photo, Chile's former President Michelle Bachelet smiles as she speaks to supporters after being officially named as candidate for the presidency by the Socialist Party and the Party for Democracy in Santiago, Chile. Bachelet, who was president from 2006 to 2010, is reaching out to the now-legal Communist Party and other left-leaning groups in her bid to return to the nation’s top post. (AP Photo/Luis Hidalgo, File)

Associated Press

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) -- Communist and other leftists were considered enemies of the state during Chile's military dictatorship, a 17-year period that saw thousands of people killed and disappeared for their politics.


It's a politically pragmatic move in a country plagued by mounting social demands and frequent protests.

But it's also part of Bachelet's goal, assuming she regains the presidency, to oversee an overhaul of the education and tax systems, which would be the country's most wide-ranging reform in four decades.


As a presidential candidate, Bachelet needs the backing of the Communists and liberal social groups in the face of mounting demands and protests clamoring for a wider distribution of Chile's copper wealth, the preservation of the environment and free education.

Chile currently has two major electoral blocs, the center-left Concertacion coalition Bachelet leads and a center-right grouping that has said it will not back her proposals. Belonging to the country's Socialist Party, Bachelet says a change in the constitution is needed to break with the two-coalition system in place since the military dictatorship and allow one side or another to collect enough votes for significant change.



Bachelet recently announced her plans to run for president after spending 2 1/2 years in New York as the first executive director of UN Women, the United Nations' new agency for women and gender issues.

"Given the characteristics of Michelle Bachelet, the question is not whether she'll win in the first or second round but whether she'll win the whole thing, and the answer is yes," said Bernardo Navarrete, a University of Santiago political scientist.

Bachelet hasn't directly mentioned courting the Communist Party but has echoed their demands for education and constitutional reform.

"Chile needs a founding document born in democracy, a constitution aligned with the present conditions of Chile, that guarantees the economic and social rights to all Chileans," Bachelet said while announcing her pre-candidacy last month.

The other leading political group in Chile is the center-right Coalition for Change, which has been unable to capitalize on the country's economic success under the bloc's standard-bearer President Sebastian Pinera. Pinera enjoyed only a 31 percent approval rating in the late-2012 poll, and 29 percent approval for his handling of the economy.



Bachelet's military father worked for Socialist President Salvador Allende and, like his wife and daughter Michelle, was detained and tortured after the Sept. 11, 1973, coup that ended Allende's rule. Bachelet's father eventually died of a heart attack in custody.

Pinochet pushed for the privatization of state enterprises and ended central control and funding of the nation's school system. Reversing those laws became a rallying cry during student marches over the past two years that have halted Chile and pushed education reform to the top of the national agenda.


   1 2  -  Next page  >>