WUNRN
CHILE - 2 WOMEN LEADERS DIVIDED IN
IDEOLOGY VIE FOR PRESIDENCY OF CHILE - MICHELLE BACHELET & EVELYN MATTHEI
Jonathan Watts - The Observer,
If a novelist
had submitted the script for the coming presidential election in Chile, the
plot might well have been dismissed as too perfectly symmetrical to be
plausible.
The two leading
candidates – Michelle Bachelet and
Evelyn Matthei – are both daughters of air force generals. As girls, they
played in the same military barracks and their fathers were friends. But when
the country was ripped apart in the 1973 coup by General Augusto Pinochet, their
families were on opposite sides of a murderous divide. One father was promoted
to run the air force. The other was tortured and died in prison.
Forty years on, the two women are still on opposite sides, but this time in
an election campaign that looks set to usher in major changes – of the
constitution, abortion law, tax and education – in one of South America's most
dynamic economies.
The timing could hardly be more sensitive.
As much as the two leading candidates would like to look to the future,
much of the coverage of the campaign has focused on their close but very
different pasts. In part, this is because the race almost seems to be over
before it has begun. Ahead of the vote on 17 November, polls suggest Bachelet –
the Social Democrat candidate – has the support of 38% to 44% of voters,
compared with 12% to 27% for her rightwing rival Matthei. But the throng of
other candidates means she is not yet certain of a conclusive first-round
victory.
The Observer met the former
paediatrician who was
Despite the parallels with Matthei, she would prefer the election to be
seen as a contest between different visions of the future, but acknowledges
that
I ask whether she feels the air force, and in particular Matthei's father,
Fernando, could have done more to help her father, Alberto. "If they
hadn't seen us as enemies, probably they would never have tortured and violated
our human rights as they did," she says. "The problem was that the
national security policy meant people on the left were seen as enemies, not
adversaries … Could they have done more? Yes. They could have not taken him
into prison, not tortured him. But more than that, I want to know how we avoid
repeating what happened in the past."
The two generals were close colleagues before the coup. But she emphasises
that the two men had no more in common in their personalities and beliefs than
their daughters.
"My father and her father were good friends, but they were very
different. My dad spoke a lot and laughed a lot. I'm like him. Matthei is more
German. She's quiet," Bachelet says. "They have tried to show us as
clones, but we are not clones … My family really believed in social justice and
were open-minded. That was seen as strange in the military of the time. That is
why we have completely different visions."
The contrast became even more marked after the coup. Bachelet worked
covertly as a courier for the underground socialist movement, concealing
documents in her fridge. She was caught, placed in a secret jail, blindfolded
and maltreated. Her father was jailed and tortured, eventually dying in
detention of a stroke. "I'm from the victims' side, from the painful
side," Bachelet says. "The best I can do is to contribute to the
construction of a more democratic country."
Matthei's fortunes were very different. She was studying in
While Bachelet pledges radical change, including free university education,
Matthei is running on a promise of continuity – to keep delivering the growth
seen under the current centre-right president, Sebastián Piñera. "Looking
back now, we can be proud. No country in Latin America has progressed as far as
But her association with Pinochet looks likely to undermine a campaign
already damaged by splits in the ruling camp and the last-minute withdrawal of
its leading candidate because of depression. Matthei campaigned for Pinochet in
the 1988 referendum that saw the general ousted from power and has appeared
reluctant to criticise the excesses of his regime. This does not play well in
an anniversary year when local television stations are filled with dramas and
documentaries about the horrors of the dictatorship's death squads and
"Caravan of Death".
Bachelet and Matthei are not the only candidates from families shaped by
the coup. Marco Enríquez-Ominami, currently fourth in the polls, was born
months before Pinochet grabbed power. His father, the Marxist guerrilla leader
Miguel Enríquez, was executed a year later. His grandfathers – one of whom
founded the Christian Democratic party – were tortured, and his half-brother
and two uncles were killed. The future presidential candidate was taken by his
mother to
If she wins, Bachelet has vowed to push forward with greater equality for
same-sex couples and a loosening of
Other leftwing leaders in Latin America, namely Hugo Chávez in
Additional reporting: Jonathan Franklin
1970
Salvador Allende elected president and begins a programme of nationalisation of
industries.
1973
Allende deposed in a military coup backed by the CIA and dies after troops
surround the presidential palace. A military junta, led by General Augusto
Pinochet, takes control. More than 3,000 people are killed and tens of
thousands tortured.
1990
Democracy restored to
1998
Pinochet arrested in
2000
Pinochet released after a long legal battle and returns to
2004
Chilean judge Juan Guzmán Tapia rules that Pinochet is medically fit to stand trial
and places him under house arrest.
2006 Michelle Bachelet elected president, the first woman to
hold the post. Unable to seek a second successive term, she leaves office in
2010 to become head of the newly created United Nations body UN Women.
2006 Pinochet dies on 10 December with around 300 criminal
charges still pending against him in
2010 Sebastián Piñera, the current president of
2013 Bachelet resigns from her UN post to run for a second
term as the president of