Michelle Bachelet

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Michelle Bachelet : biography

September 29, 1951 –

Popularity

Job-approval ratings.

Bachelet enjoyed an approval rating above 50% for her first three months in office, during the so-called "honeymoon period." Her popularity fell during the students protests that year, hovering in the mid 40s. In July she had a disastrous public relations incident when a group of residents she was visiting in the southern city of Chiguayante who were affected by a landslide berated her publicly on television, accusing her of using their tragedy to boost her falling popularity. One woman demanded that she leave the scene so rescue efforts could continue. In July, after only four months in office, Bachelet was forced to reshuffle her cabinet, in what was the fastest ministerial adjustment since 1990.

Bachelet’s popularity dipped further in her second year, reaching a low of 35% approval, 46% disapproval in September 2007. This fall was mainly attributed to the Transantiago fiasco. That same month she had a second negative incident when a group of earthquake and tsunami victims she was visiting in the southern region of Aisén received her bearing black flags, and accused her of showing up late. The city mayor, who told Bachelet to "go to hell", later apologized. During the next 12 months her approval ratings did not improve.

At the onset of the global financial crisis in September 2008 Bachelet’s popularity was at a low 42%, but gradually her job approval ratings began to rise. When she left office in March 2010 her popular support was at a record 84%, according to conservative polling institute Adimark GfK. The Chilean Constitution does not allow a president to serve two consecutive terms and Bachelet endorsed CPD candidate Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle for the December 2009 election.

Political life

Involvement in politics

In her first year as a university student (1970), Bachelet became a member of the Socialist Youth (then presided by future deputy and later disappeared physician Carlos Lorca, who has been cited as her political mentor), and was an active supporter of the Popular Unity. In the immediate aftermath of the coup, she and her mother worked as couriers for the underground Socialist Party directorate that was trying to organize a resistance movement; eventually almost all of them were captured and disappeared. Following her return from exile she became politically active during the second half of the 1980s, fighting—though not on the front line—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 and a right-wing stronghold. Lavín won the 22-candidate election with nearly 78% of the vote, while she finished fourth with 2.35%. At the 1999 presidential primary of the Concert of Parties for Democracy (CPD), Chile’s governing coalition from 1990 to 2010, she worked for Ricardo Lagos’s nomination, heading the Santiago electoral zone.

Work as minister

Bachelet, as [[Minister of Defense, meeting with U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in 2002]]

On March 11, 2000 Bachelet—virtually unknown at the time—was appointed Minister of Health by President Ricardo Lagos. She began an in-depth study of the public health-care system that led to the AUGE plan a few years later. She was also given the task of eliminating waiting lists in the saturated public hospital system within the first 100 days of Lagos’s government. She reduced waiting lists by 90%, but was unable to eliminate them completely and offered her resignation, which was promptly rejected by the President. Controversially, she allowed free distribution of the morning-after pill for victims of sexual abuse.

On January 7, 2002 Bachelet 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. While Minister of Defense she promoted reconciliatory gestures between the military and victims of the dictatorship, culminating in the historic 2003 declaration by General Juan Emilio Cheyre, head of the army, that "never again" would the military subvert democracy in Chile. She also oversaw a reform of the military pension system and continued with the process of modernization of the Chilean armed forces with the purchasing of new military equipment, while engaging in international peace operations.