MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bachelet proclaimed pre-candidate promises tax and education reforms

The former president is cheered at the Caupolican Theatre in Santiago

Former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet was proclaimed as pre-candidate for the coming presidential elections next November 17 during a political rally in Santiago organized by the Socialists and the Party for Democracy (PPD).

Ms Bachelet, 62, will represent the Socialist and PPD next June 30 when the opposition coalition Concertación holds its primary to nominate the presidential candidate. The main opposition in the coalition will come from the Christian Democrats.

“I’m back in the country with all the energy and also all the humbleness needed for this challenge” said Ms Bachelet addressing 6.000 people packed into the Teatro Caupolican in downtown Santiago and with a huge screen outside for those follower who could not make it to the arena.

Bachelet said that in the event of victory her government’s main objective will be “combating inequality”. She added “here we are together those citizens who want Chile with more citizens, more solidarity with more future”.

Bachelet was president from 2006 to 2010 and stepped down with soaring popularity ratings. She could not bid for a consecutive period since it is banned by the Chilean constitution.

Before her speech a video was exhibited showing Ms Bachelet in New York where she was head for over two years of the recently creased UN Women’s directory.

Public opinion polls indicate Bachelet leads comfortably and could even win in November with no need of a run off.

Bachelet also said she will use a second term to reform taxes and education. “We must guarantee everyone a public education system that integrates at all levels, ends profit and advances toward universal gratuity,” she said. “It's the desire of most Chileans.”

The daughter of an Air Force general tortured to death for opposing General Augusto Pinochet's 1973 military coup, Bachelet herself was arrested along with her mother in 1975 and went into exile to Australia and the former East Germany.

“Combating inequality is what gives us a purpose to be here,” Bachelet said.

Student protests demanding free education marked the final years of her term and worsened during the administration of her conservative successor, Sebastian Piñera. The current president’s popularity has plunged to the lowest level of any Chilean leader since the end of Pinochet's dictatorship in 1990.

The conservative governing coalition of Piñera will also have to hold primaries on June 30 and has several pre-candidates: Andres Allamand, (Natinal Renovation) former defence minister, or Laurence Golborne, the former public works minister who led the 2010 rescue of 33 miners trapped deep underground in the Atacama desert. He belongs to the Independent Democrat Union.