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Chile election: conservative Piñera elected president
12/17/2017, 6:58:17 PM · by sparklite2 · 27 replies
BBC ^ | December 17, 2017 | bbc
A conservative billionaire and former president, Sebastián Piñera, has won Chile’s presidential election run-off. It is a marked move to the right for the country, which is currently led by socialist President Michelle Bachelet. She had backed Mr Guillier.

Chilean president asks cabinet to resign
5/7/2015, 3:11:53 AM · by SunkenCiv · 2 replies
BBC News ^ | May 7, 2015 | unattributed
...Ms Bachelet’s son, Sebastian Davalos, was accused by the opposition of using his influence to get a $10m (£6.5m) bank loan for his wife. His wife’s company used the money to buy plots of land in central Chile which her company then resold for profit. Although Chile’s national bank regulator cleared him of any wrongdoing, the issue has become a scandal. Ms Bachelet always maintained she had not been aware of the deal but in a TV interview on Wednesday night she acknowledged she had made “important mistakes” in not returning from holiday or commenting on the case sooner. Correspondents...

Chile’s Bachelet signs same-sex civil union law
4/13/2015, 1:07:31 PM · by Olog-hai · 7 replies
Associated Press ^ | Apr 13, 2015 12:52 PM EDT
Chilean President Michelle Bachelet has signed a law that recognizes civil unions between same-sex couples. The law signed Monday takes effect in six months, giving same-sex and unmarried couples many of the rights granted to married couples. Among the changes, it will allow civil union partners to inherit each other’s property, join a partner’s health plan and receive pension benefits. …

Approval rating of Chile’s President Bachelet falls to new low
10/7/2014, 10:16:45 PM · by Viennacon · 5 replies
Reuters ^ | Thu Oct 2, 2014 | REUTERS/IVAN ALVARADO
Chile’s President Michelle Bachelet saw her approval rating fall for the third straight month in September, though support for her key reforms improved, a poll showed on Thursday. Overall approval of the center-left president slipped 2 percentage points from August to 47 percent, said pollster Gfk Adimark, Bachelet’s lowest rating in the monthly survey since returning to power in March. As well as flagging economic growth, there was a spate of bombings in capital Santiago in September, including one that left 14 people injured and another that left a man dead. Ahead of her second non-consecutive term, Bachelet promised an...

Unpopular Populism in Chile
12/20/2013, 9:29:17 AM · by InsightSur · 6 replies
The PanAm Post ^
Chile’s former president Michelle Bachelet won in a runoff election this Sunday, afterfailing to obtain a majority of votes in November’s first round. She has now cleared the path to a second term as president of Chile, with 62 percent of the vote, bettering the 37 percent garnered by her childhood playmate, economist, and recent minister of labor and social security, Evelyn Matthei. She did win a majority of votes on Sunday, but that’s only half the story. As US author and humorist Mark Twain famously mused, “there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

Election Of Socialist Is Bad Omen For Free-Market Chile
12/17/2013, 11:03:25 PM · by IBD editorial writer · 42 replies
Investor’s Business Daily ^ | 16 Dec 2013 | Editorial
Leftism: Chile has long been a global model of free-market economics. But on Sunday, it elected socialist Michelle Bachelet, who ran on a platform of tax hikes and “free” education. What drives a country to reject success? Bachelet took an astonishing 62% of the vote against her more conservative rival, Evelyn Matthei, who drew just 38%. It wasn’t entirely surprising: Bachelet projected a cheery, confident, maternal demeanor and made few gaffes, quite unlike the less polished Matthei. She also had a good record: As president from 2006 to 2010, she left office with a phenomenal 84% popularity rating — in...

I wonder if they had Dominion voting machines when she got an “astonishing 62% of the vote” there?