Chilean Voters Return a Former President to Power
Ms. Bachelet received about 62 percent of the vote, compared with 38 percent for her opponent, Evelyn Matthei, according to preliminary results from the Chilean electoral service. Ms. Matthei conceded defeat.Ms. Bachelet, who was widely admired as president from 2006 to 2010, when her policies helped shield Chile from a sharp downturn during the global financial crisis, has put forth an ambitious package of proposals that would, among other things, increase corporate taxes, expand access to higher education and overhaul the 1980 Constitution, which dates to the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet.
Her platform contrasted sharply with the anti-tax views of Ms. Matthei, a former labor minister who belongs to the most conservative wing of the governing coalition of President Sebastián Piñera, a right-wing billionaire. Ghosts of the Pinochet era hung over this year’s race; unlike Mr. Piñera himself, Ms. Matthei voted in favor of General Pinochet in the 1988 plebiscite that opened the way for democracy to be re-established in Chile.
The coalition that led her to victory is the Nueva Mayoría The New Majority (Spanish: Nueva Mayoría) is a Chilean electoral coalition created in 2013 and composed mainly of center-left political parties supporting the presidential candidacy of Michelle Bachelet in the 2013 election.The coalition consists of the four principal parties of the Concert of Parties for Democracy, namely, the Socialist Party of Chile (PS), the Christian Democratic Party (Chile) (PDC), the Party for Democracy (PPD) and the Social Democrat Radical Party (PRSD). In addition, the New Majority also includes the Communist Party of Chile (PCCh), the Citizen Left (IC), the Broad Social Movement (MAS) and centre-left independents
Queue exploding heads of wing-nuttia here in the U.S.