Word: bachelet
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...1980s opposed it. According to the Chilean judge, three men tied to Pinochet, including a doctor, secretly injected Frei Montalva with toxic mustard gas and thallium while he was in the hospital for stomach surgery. (See Hillary Clinton's TIME 100 tribute to Chile's President Michelle Bachelet...
...doubtful that even those morbid revelations can turn enough voters back to Chile's center-left coalition, the Concertación. President Michelle Bachelet, a moderate socialist and Chile's first female head of state, remains hugely popular; but Frei Ruiz, 67, hasn't been able to exploit her cachet and has instead come to symbolize the Concertación's staleness after two decades in power, especially as the global recession slows Latin America's most envied economy. Frei Ruiz's problems have been highlighted by the remarkable rise of a third candidate, Marco Enríquez-Ominami - born...
...uprising, which has left four Mapuche dead and more than 100 arrested or convicted, has also spawned a political quandary for President Michelle Bachelet. She has resorted to a controversial antiterrorist law - developed during the brutal, 1973-1990 dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet - to prosecute Mapuche militants. The measure, used by Pinochet to hound political opponents, allows fewer pretrial rights for defendants, who can be accused by anonymous and masked witnesses. It also imposes longer prison sentences and augments the powers of the police and judicial system - never a comfortable prospect in a country that is still shaking the ironfisted...
...Bachelet had promised before taking office in 2006 that she would not use the law in Mapuche cases. She and her government, however, insist they have no choice at this point. "We've decided to invoke the antiterror law to go after these groups of people who are set on perpetrating crimes, disorder and unrest in a region seeking peace and harmony," Chile's Deputy Interior Secretary, Patricio Rosend, said recently. (See why Chile's Atacama Desert has become a tourist destination...
...Bachelet, a member of Chile's Socialist Party, and her center-left coalition, the Concertación, have been criticized for being soft on criminals. Many political analysts suggest that with presidential elections set for Dec. 13 - and with the Concertación well behind the conservatives in voter polls - the left may hope that employing the antiterror law will bolster its law-and-order bona fides. Sebastian Piñera, the billionaire businessman who leads the polls, has made security and crime-fighting a centerpiece of his campaign...