(Vatican Radio) Michelle Bachelet has convincingly won the runoff for the Presidency
of Chile. Bachelet with her socialist leftist coalition has won 62 percent of the
vote while Evelyn Matthei a former Labor Minister of the outgoing right of center
Administration gained 38 percent.
No one is allowed to serve back to back
Presidential terms in Chile. But in her last stint between 2006 and 2010, Michelle
Bachelet's moderate policies proved successful, and she left the job with a a popularity
rating of more than 80 percent. While Matthei is opposed to tax hikes, Bachelet is
proposing increasing Corporate Tax to make all education, especially university free
to all.
Chile is a major copper producer and one of the richest nations in
Latin America. However the divide between rich and poor is the most pronounced in
the entire region. Michelle Bachelet is pledging to narrow it. She's also promising
to reform strictures imposed and encapsulated by the 1980 Constitution, during the
1973 to 1990 dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, which have politically, socially
and economically controlled Chile.
Listen to the report by correspondent
James Blears: