Venstrekandidaten Michelle Bachelet har vundet første runde af præsidentvalget i Chile, men fik mod forventning ikke stemmer nok til at undgå en ny valgrunde – hun var i flere år leder af FNs nye kvindeorganisation, UN Women.
She took nearly 47 per cent of the vote. Her main rival, Evelyn Matthei, who was a minister in the centre-right government of Sebastian Pinera, got 25 per cent, writes BBC online Sunday.
A second round of voting will take place on 15 December. The lower house of congress and half the senate are also being elected.
Ms Matthei will face a tall order picking up the votes of the seven other presidential candidates as they are leftists, populists and mavericks.
If Ms Bachelet is to push through her radical reform programme, she will need a clear majority in both houses of Parliament. And that is difficult to achieve – even for a politician as popular as Ms Bachelet.
A paediatrician (børnelæge) by training, Ms Bachelet was Chile’s first woman president between 2006 and 2010.
She was constitutionally barred from serving a second successive term.
Ms Bachelet leads an alliance of her Socialist Party, Christian Democrats and Communists and has campaigned on policies designed to reduce the gap between rich and poor.
Ms Bachelet, 62, wants to increase taxes to offer free university education and reform political and economic structures dating from the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, who ruled from 1973 to 1990.
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http://www.u-landsnyt.dk/nyhed/20-07-13/ny-un-women-chef-ban-trak-sydafrikansk-joker-op-af
