CHILE: Socialist Party candidate Michelle Bachelet led Chile's presidential election by more than a million votes yesterday but did not capture the majority needed to avoid a run-off next month against a united right, according to nearly complete returns.
Dr Bachelet, a political prisoner during the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet and later a defence minister under a democratic government, received 46 per cent of the vote.
She was trailed by two conservatives, Sebastian Pinera, who is one of Chile's wealthiest men and who took 25 per cent, and Joaquin Lavin, a former mayor of Santiago, who had 23 per cent.
According to Chile's election laws, if no candidate receives more than 50 per cent of the vote, a run-off between the top contenders will be scheduled for January 15th.
If elected, Dr Bachelet (54), a former paediatrician, is expected to continue to promote the market-based economic policies and expansion of domestic social programmes that have marked the five-year term of President Ricardo Lagos. She has promised that at least half her cabinet would be composed of women.
Dr Bachelet's father, an air force general who was jailed for his opposition to the 1973 coup that brought Pinochet to power, died of torture in prison. Dr Bachelet was also imprisoned by the military government.