South America Welcomes 4th Socialist Head Of State

She won the first round of voting on 11 December with 46 per cent, but was forced into a runoff because she failed to win an outright majority. Sebastian Piñera, candidate for the rightest alliance, was second with 25 per cent. Her appointment as the country's first female defence minister, in 2002, was also unusual, as she is a former political exile and the daughter of an Air Force general who was tortured and died after opposing General Augusto Pinochet's 1973 coup d'etat. But she was embraced by the Armed Forces, and is seen as having shone in that portfolio. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article338840.ece

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