Chile's First Female President

...It continues to pursue free trade agreements, with over 20 already signed including one with the European Union...

...Bachelet can take comfort from the fact that Ricardo Lagos was almost as unpopular in his first two years as she is now, yet left office (after what was then a sixyear term) with a 71 per cent approval rating, the highest of any president since Chile’s return to democracy...

...The greatest accomplishment of the Bachelet administration may prove to be the restructuring of Chile’s pension system...

...Her 68 per cent approval rating soon after taking office sank to a low of 38 per cent last November...

...Similarly, a health program initiated by the previous administration has considerably broadened the scope of guaranteed medical coverage...

...incentives would encourage participation by younger workers...

...However, her uphill battle has been complicated by recent defections that have stripped the Concertación coalition of its assured majority in Congress...

...Two years later, the enthusiasm for Chile’s first female president has diminished...

...The historically high price of copper has enabled the government to expand welfare programs while maintaining budget and trade surpluses...

...A side effect of the debate, though, has been the adoption of a law requiring companies to hire “subcontracted” workers outright...

...Her commission on electoral reform has come up with a plan for ending the “binomial” approach introduced by Pinochet to bolster the Right’s representation...

...Moreover, because her family had supported the Socialist government of Salvador Allende, her father, an Air Force general, was charged with treason after General Augusto Pinochet’s September 11, 1973 coup...

...Paul Sigmund, a previous contributor to the NL, is professor emeritus of politics at Princeton University and author of The United States and Democracy in Chile...

...Competition would be increased by allowing banks and other financial institutions to participate...

...The most devastating blow suffered by the new government occurred in February 2007, with the implementation of Transantiago, a long-planned reorganization of the public transit system here in the capital...

...The arrival of still more new buses and Lagos’ apology may account for a subsequent slight improvement in Bachelet’s approval rating...

...Its future prospects will depend on whether accelerated social reform and improvement in the Santiago transport system yield a successful second stage of Bachelet’s presidency...

...The Army, for example, is firmly committed to civilian rule and supports the president...

...Following his death in prison in 1974, she herself was imprisoned and exiled, and did not return to Chile until 1979...

...The next municipal elections are scheduled for this October...

...The proposed law includes a government-financed “solidarity” program that would guarantee $143 a month to the low-income groups, among them housewives who never entered the labor market...

...Bachelet’s approval ratings dropped precipitously, especially in the Santiago metropolitan area...

...The ambitious scheme replaced a chaotic yet effective network of small yellow minibuses with new European-made double-length buses and linked them to the subways...

...The government answered that the plan had been developed by the previous administration, and Congress began a lengthy investigation to determine who was to blame...

...In fact, she first became a public figure in 2002 when she was appointed minister of defense by her predecessor, Ricardo Lagos, also a Socialist...

...Relations between Bachelet and coalition participants further deteriorated as she bypassed party leaders in her appointments...

...The calls to abolish private voucher-subsidized for-profit schools failed to gain traction because 52 per cent of Chilean schoolchildren attend private schools, half of which are for-profit...

...The Constitution does not allow Bachelet to succeed herself...

...presidential and congressional elections will be held in December 2009...

...Her poll-driven popularity led to her nomination for the presidency over veteran politicians, and to her January 2006 defeat of the Alliance for Chile candidate by a margin of 53 to 46 per cent...

...While surveys show that Chileans like Bachelet personally, evaluations of her leadership qualities are uniformly negative...

...Today people are asking whether Bachelet can turn the situation around in the next two years—what she has termed the “second stage” of her presidency—and how her disappointing performance will impact the Concertación’s future...

...Contributions to private pensions would provide additional retirement funds...

...Still, the Right remains divided into two parties, while the Concertación still combines the Center and the Left...

...Wage equity, an issue raised by a Catholic bishop who criticized existing imbalances, is the target of an ambitious proposal that would guarantee a minimum family income of $250 a month...

...In foreign policy, the government has pursued negotiations with Peru aimed at resolving a dispute over territorial waters...

...In December he acknowledged his missteps and asked for the public’s pardon...

...By November, despite the delivery of more buses, only 11 per cent of those polled endorsed the government’s handling of the crisis...

...Bachelet responded with an apology, then a Congressional committee identified by name those who were responsible—including former President Lagos...

...But she herself has put in motion four significant new initiatives...

...In this atmosphere, it is possible to discuss repealing a law inherited from Pinochet that reserves 10 per cent of foreign exchange earned by the national copper company for military purchases...

...Chilean troops are also part of United Nations peacekeeping efforts in Haiti, and the country is active in international human rights programs...

...There has long been a broad belief that the privatization of pensions instituted by Pinochet needs thorough revamping...

...In education, Bachelet has put forward a promising new program...

...Shortly afterward, however, secondary school students went on a nationwide strike...

...The Transantiago fiasco, in particular, has overshadowed the Bachelet administration’s positive impact in many areas...

...An inadequate number of buses caused long waits, the subways were suddenly crammed To kyo-style, and commuting times were doubled and tripled...

...The second jolt to the new administration came within a few months, when it was discovered that funds for government sports programs had been diverted to political campaigns of the coalition parties...

...In addition, Bachelet has signed a joint statement with President Evo Morales of Bolivia concerning the controversial issue of that nation’s access to the sea...

...The new legislation would establish a superintendent of education to monitor both the quality and profit margins of those schools, and public schools would receive a significant budget increase to hire teachers and renovate dilapidated facilities...

...Citing the record-high price of copper, Chile’s principal export, the “revolution of the penguins” (a reference to the dark jackets and white shirts of school uniforms) called for a comprehensive effort to improve public education, including the abolition of voucher-supported for-profit private schools...

...She got off to a good start, appointing a Cabinet that had many fresh faces and an equal number of men and women...

...and strict limits would be placed on what are recognized as excessive commissions taken by the private funds’ handlers...

...Although this was introduced during the summ er, when usage is reduced, the result was disastrous...

...Bachelet headed the ticket of the Concertación de Partidos por la Democracia, made up of Christian Democrats, Socialists and other parties...

...Chile’s gross domestic product grew more than 4 per cent in 2007, and until recently inflation was low...

...The most striking domestic economic achievement has been an additional reduction in the number of households living in poverty—from 18 per cent in 2000 to 13 per cent in the latest tally...

...Because legislators are in essence being asked to abolish the system that elected them, no consensus has emerged about this...

...The scandal was passed along to the judicial system, but it lent credence to opposition claims that the Concertación has been in power too long...

...Whatever troubles she has endured, few deny that she has continued to promote a pattern of political democracy, economic growth and social justice that is a model for Latin America and the developing world...

...So it appeared that she could put through the 36 reforms she promised in her initial 100 days...

...Lagos is eligible to run because there has been an intervening president, but his role in the Transantiago mess has damaged his image...

...The coalition has won every election since defeating Pinochet in a 1988 plebiscite, but until now never had a majority in both houses of Congress...

...Its chances of passage, too, are dubious...

...After some hesitation, Bachelet acceded to several of the students’ demands— including free passes for public transportation—and appointed a commission of 81 representatives of relevant groups to revise the education law...

...A divorced, agnostic single mother running in a heavily Catholic country, she had never held elective office...

...The commission issued a report many months later, with an extensive list of recommendations, but most of them still have been ignored or rejected by Congress...

...Bachelet owes her early problems to circumstances that she inherited from Lagos...