Michelle Bachelet in a promotional campaign image
Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria (born September 29, 1951) is a Chilean Socialist politician and the first woman to be elected president of her country. She won the presidency in a runoff election in 2006, facing center-right billionaire businessman Sebastián Piñera, obtaining a preliminary 53.5% of the vote. She campaigned on a platform of continuing Chile's free market policies, while increasing social benefits to help reduce the country's gap between rich and poor. Her presidency will be inaugurated on March 11, 2006.
Bachelet, who served as Health Minister and Defense Minister under President Ricardo Lagos, is a separated mother of three and a self-described agnostic, which sets her apart in a mainly Catholic country. She speaks Spanish, English, German, Portuguese, French, and some basic Russian.
Bachelet was born in Santiago, the second child of anthropologist Ángela Jeria Gómez and Air Force General Alberto Bachelet Martínez. She spent much of her childhood years traveling around Chile, moving with her family from one military base to another. She attended primary school in Quintero, Cerro Moreno, Antofagasta and San Bernardo. In 1962 she moved with her family to the United States, where her father was assigned to the military mission at the Chilean Embassy in Washington. Her family spent almost two years living in Bethesda, Maryland, where she attended middle school and learned to speak English fluently. Back in Chile, she graduated from high school in 1969 at Liceo Nº 1 Javiera Carrera, a prestigious girls-only school, finishing near the top of her class. There she was president of her class and a member of the school's choir and volleyball team, and was part of a theater group and a music band called Las Clap Clap (which she helped found) that toured through many school festivals. In 1970 she took the university admissions test, obtaining one of the highest national scores. This allowed her to enter medical school at the University of Chile. She originally wanted to study sociology but her father convinced her to study medicine.
Under the government of Salvador Allende, Bachelet's father was in charge of the Food Distribution Office, but when Augusto Pinochet came to power in the September 11, 1973 coup, he was immediately detained at the Air War Academy, under charges of treason. Following months of daily torture at Santiago's Public Prison, on March 12, 1974, he suffered a cardiac arrest that resulted in his death. On January 10, 1975, Bachelet and her mother were also detained, and tortured at Villa Grimaldi, a notorious secret detention center in Santiago. Some days later they were transferred to Cuatro Álamos detention center, where they were held until the end of January. Later in 1975, due to sympathetic connections in the military, both were exiled to Australia, where Bachelet's older brother Alberto had moved in 1969. Bachelet and her mother decided to settle in East Germany where Bachelet learned German at the Herder Institute in Leipzig, continuing her medical studies at the Humboldt University of Berlin for two years. There she met architect Jorge Dávalos, another Chilean exile, whom she married. Their first child, Sebastián, was born in Leipzig in 1978.
Michelle Bachelet giving a speech as Defense Minister
In 1979 Bachelet returned to Chile. Her medical school coursework from East Germany was not recognized at the University of Chile (now under the control of the military), forcing her to resume her studies from where she had left off before fleeing the country. She graduated as an M.D. (surgeon) in 1983 as one of the best students in her class. Her academic performance and published papers earned her a scholarship to specialize in pediatrics and public health at Children's Hospital Roberto del Río (1983-1986). During this time she also worked with non-governmental organizations (NGOs), such as PIDEE (which she headed between 1986 and 1990), helping children of the tortured and disappeared in Santiago and Chillán. Some time after their second child, Francisca, was born in 1984, she and her husband separated.
In 1990, after democracy was restored in Chile, Bachelet worked for the Ministry of Health and was a consultant for the Pan-American Health Organization, the World Health Organization and the German Society for Technical Cooperation (GTZ). While working for the National AIDS Commission (Conasida), she met Aníbal Henríquez, a physician, with whom she had her third child, Sofia, born in 1992. Between 1994 and July 1997, Bachelet worked as an adviser to the Health Undersecretary.
Driven by an interest in civil-military relations, in 1996 she began studies in military strategy at the National Academy of Political and Strategic Studies (Anepe) in Chile, obtaining first place in her class. Her excellent student achievement earned her a presidential scholarship, permitting her to continue her studies outside Chile in the United States at the InterAmerican Defense College in Washington, DC. In 1998 she returned to Chile to work for the Defense Ministry as an adviser to the Minister. She subsequently graduated from a Masters program in military science at the Chilean Army's War Academy.
Bachelet, as Minister of Defense, meeting with U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in 2002
As a university student, in the 1970s, Bachelet was a member of the Socialist Youth, then presided by future deputy and now disappeared physician Carlos Lorca. She then joined the Socialist Party of Chile and was politically active during the second half of the 1980s, fighting for the re-establishment of democracy in Chile. In 1995 she became part of the party's Central Committee, and from 1998 until 2000 she was an active member of the Political Commission.
In 1996, Bachelet ran against future presidential adversary Joaquín Lavín for the mayorship of Las Condes, a wealthy Santiago suburb. Lavín was elected mayor with nearly 78% of the vote, while she only finished fourth at 2.35%. In the 1999 CPD —Coalition of Parties for Democracy, Chile's governing coalition since 1990— presidential primary, she worked for Ricardo Lagos's nomination, heading the Santiago electoral zone.
Bachelet, as President-elect, is visited by President Ricardo Lagos the day after the election
Bachelet was named Minister of Health by President Ricardo Lagos on March 11, 2000, and on January 7, 2002 she was appointed Defense Minister, becoming the first woman to hold this post in a Latin American country and one of the few in the world.
In late 2004, following a surge of her popularity in opinion polls, Bachelet was asked to become the Socialists' candidate for the presidency. Ángela Jeria, her mother, has revealed that her daughter told her that in the beginning she didn't want to accept the nomination, but that she ended up accepting it because "I couldn't let my people down." On October 1 of that year she resigned from her government post in order to begin her campaign. A primary to define the sole presidential candidate of the Concertación was canceled after her rival, Christian Democrat Soledad Alvear, a former cabinet member of the three CPD administrations, pulled out early due to a lack of support within her own party and in opinion polls.
At the 2005 election, Bachelet faced the center-right candidate Sebastián Piñera (RN), the right-wing candidate Joaquín Lavín (UDI) and the far-left candidate Tomás Hirsch (JPM). At 46% of the vote, she failed to obtain the absolute majority needed to win the election outright. In the runoff election on January 15, 2006, Bachelet faced Piñera, and won the presidency with a preliminary 53.5% of the vote, thus becoming her country's first female elected president and the first woman who was not the wife of a previous head of state or political leader to reach the presidency of a Latin American nation in a direct election. She has vowed that half her cabinet will be women.