Posted on 01/15/2006 7:28:09 PM PST by Lessismore
Chilean voters have elected a socialist single mother to be their first female president.
Conservative billionaire Sebastian Pinera has conceded defeat in the presidential poll, paving the way for Michelle Bachelet.
The result marks an amazing turnaround for Dr Bachelet, who was tortured under the regime of former president Augusto Pinochet and forced into exile.
Dr Bachelet was swept to victory in the national election with 53 per cent of the vote.
Her campaign promptly proclaimed victory saying Dr Bachelet will be "the president of all Chileans".
Dr Bachelet had been widely expected to win the election, but her campaign manager, Sergio Bitar, said her showing was even better than anticipated.
"This shows stronger support than we had expected," said Mr Bitar.
Dr Bachelet's victory will extend the rule of the center-left coalition that has governed the South American country since the collapse of Pinochet's dictatorship in 1990.
Both Dr Bachelet's campaign and that of her rival said her lead was stronger than they had anticipated.
"I am delighted as a Chilean woman by this result," said former foreign minister Soledad Alvear, who last year gave up her plan to run for president in order to support Dr Bachelet.
Mr Pinera congratulated Dr Bachelet on her victory and pledged to lead a strong and constructive opposition.
Celebrations broke out in the streets of Santiago shortly after the results were announced and supporters cheered and honked their car horns as they headed to a downtown hotel where Dr Bachelet was expected to celebrate her triumph.
"I feel like a very fortunate woman," Dr Bachelet, told national television earlier Sunday.
"I was the first woman in Chile's history to be minister of health, and the first woman minister of defence, and if I am elected, I would be Chile's first woman president - that means so much to so many women."
During her campaign, she said she would take advantage of record copper prices to improve education and conditions for the less fortunate.
Dr Bachelet has portrayed herself as an ordinary woman who understands the concerns of ordinary people.
"I work, I take care of my home and I drop my daughter off at school, but I'm also a Chilean who feels a calling to fight for justice and to public service."
"Dr Bachelet was swept to victory in the national election with 53 per cent of the vote."
Hmmmmmmmmmm....wasn't that also Bush's margin of victory in 2005? Did the media say he was "swept to victory"?
Now be nice.
The take over continues:
Venezuela --- Communist, hard core
Bolivia -- Communist, former cocaine farmer
Brazil -- Socialist, hard core
Chile -- Socialist, ??
Pay attention to the vineyards and trade, socialist idjut. 'There's gold 'em there hills and valleys...'
Shhh, we're not supposed to notice the encirclement.
The red-green-brown axis strengthens.
Seriously, the process is probably more important than the result.
We're very close to Chile, in terms of trade, and I believe it's important to both our countries that we be perceived, both in appearance and in deed, as being mutually supportive.
Chile is as near to a success story as that unhappy continent has produced to date. Nothing's going to change, not substantively, under Bachelet.
(Whistling in the dark...)
In free choice elections South Americans always seem to vote for someone just to the left of Fidel lately.
They've been so poorly served by the pathetic excuses for popular governments that they may have had, that radical lurches to the left or right almost seem logical.
It could well swing the other way and I don't relish seeing that either.
With the election of this communist, Chile has now regressed back to Allende!
You're not just whistling in the dark, you're using "tongue in cheek" sarcasm...right?
Election of this communist, "single mother" has shoved Chile back a few decades and this time they'll never get out of it as there are entirely too many communist/socialist SA nations to give the bitch some support.
However, Brasil's Lula da Silva after having won on socialist rhetoric said those words: it's good to distribute, but to distribute, you need to produce first. I think economically, he is more of a pragmatist. Everybody knows that socialism does not produce.
He may, indeed, be a pragmatist, but he is a big fat socialist and this has nothing to do with Chile's recently elected communist.
Same voter came out to beat me in NY... elected a socialist, single mother.. What a hoot!
53% is a sweeping "Stronger than expected" victory!!??
Are ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN...writing this??
FWIW-
Really. How about a open Lesbian heading the New York City council. Think Bush will send any extra money that way?
Really. How about a open Lesbian heading the New York City council. Think Bush will send any extra money that way?
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