The center-left candidate Michelle Bachelet has won the Chilean presidential election, and with a comfortable margin, a continuance of a left-leaning trend that has existed in Central and South American politics in the past few years. It looks like that will have an influence on the around ten other presidential elections in the region coming in 2006.
Bachelet's victory is meaningful for several reasons. To begin with, she is the first woman to be elected president in the region by her own abilities. Women have been elected president in other countries previously, but they were all women who enjoyed the benefit of having politician husbands. And because she is a direct victim of the early abuses of the Augusto Pinochet's military junta, which ruled Chile with an iron fist for seventeen years, ending only in 1990, her victory also means that country is overcoming its painful history and entering a new era. Her resume is even more unique for being a doctor of pediatrics and an expert in military affairs, and she proved her abilities with fine performances as minister of health and later minister of defense.
The turn towards the political left in Central and South America is related to the way the neoliberal economic policies pursued in the nineties with active support from the United States failed to be effective, deeper dependency on the U.S. and greater socioeconomic disparity. The result is that it is common to see strong anti-American sentiment in countries where leftist governments have come to power. It is true of Venezuela, where the American eyesore Hugo Chavez is president; true of Bolivia, where the member of an indigenous nation has assumed the presidency for the first time, and it is true of Brazil and Argentina. Chile, on the other hand, has continued to make growth and an open economic system major priorities, as seen when it signed a free trade agreement (FTA) with the U.S. two years ago. It will be interesting to see how Chile harmonizes that pragmatic approach with the ever-stronger tilt towards the left.
Chile is also the first nation with which Korea signed an FTA. One hopes to see the two countries enjoy even better relations with the new government there.
The Hankyoreh, 17 January 2006.
[Translations by Seoul Selection]
