Ministry of Foreign Affairs & Foreign Trade

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President of the Republic of Chile, Dr. Michelle Bachelet

The Republic of Chile, like Jamaica, is being governed for the first time by a female Head of Government, Her Excellency, Dr. Michelle Bachelet.
Come this Friday (June 9), the Chilean President will pay a one-day working visit to Jamaica, with the highlight of the visit being a private meeting with Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller at Jamaica House.

Born in Santiago, Chile on September 29, 1951, President Bachelet is trained as a doctor, with graduate studies in military sciences.

Fluent in five languages, her interest in politics took root in 1970 when she accompanied a friend to the Posta Central, a major hospital in Santiago. Although she had previously thought about studying sociology or economics, her time at the hospital led her to study medicine at the University of Chile, as a concrete way to relieve people's pain and improve health care in Chile.

A leader in student political affairs, during the Unidad Popular (Popular Unity) government of Salvador Allende, the future President participated in the Socialist Youth Movement. However, political upheaval erupted in Chile with General Augusto Pinochet leading a coup against the Allende government. Her father, General Alberto Bachelet, who had been appointed to head the Allende government's Price and Supply Committees was arrested and held captive following the coup. General Bachelet suffered a heart attack and died in 1974 while being held in a public prison.

In the midst of the political turmoil, in 1975 both Dr. Bachelet and her mother were separated and detained by agents from Pinochet's secret police force, who subjected the women to interrogation and torture.

Once freed, the two travelled to Austria as exiles, then ventured to East Germany, where she studied German in Leipzig and enrolled at the Humboldt University medical school in Berlin.

In Germany, she married a fellow Chilean exile, architect Jorge Davalos. They are parents to two children, Sebastian and Francisca.

She returned to Chile in 1970 to continue her studies in medicine at the University of Chile, graduating in 1982 as a surgeon. She applied to work in the public health system where she felt the greatest need existed but her application was rejected "for political reasons" as the military regime was still in power. The medical graduate subsequently qualified for a scholarship from the Chilean Medical College to continue her studies and spent four years specialising in paediatrics and public health at the Roberto del Rio Hospital.

She also joined different political organisations working to restore democracy in Chile and was later hired to work in a non-governmental organisation that offered different types of treatment to children traumatised by dictatorship in Santiago.

Democracy was restored to Chile in 1990, and this created the need for professionals to help restore the country's public health system, which had been neglected during the dictatorship. During this time, Dr. Bachelet consulted with the Pan American Health Organisation, the World Health Organisation, and the German Technical Co-operation Agency.

In 1994, she joined the Health Ministry as a consultant on primary care and healthcare services management issues. Her opinions on the defence policies and their institutional, political and cultural implications, motivated her to pursue a course in military strategy at the National Academy of Strategic and Political Studies, which she finished at the top of her class. This qualified her for a President of the Republic scholarship to take a course in Continental Defence at the Inter-American Defence College in Washington in 1997. She returned to Chile and was immediately hired to work in the Ministry of Defence.

She was chosen by the Central Committee of the Socialist Party to run for the city council of the Santiago-area district of Las Condes in 1996. In 1998, she was chosen by the party's Central Committee to join its political committee, where she remained until March 11, 2000.

Dr. Bachelet worked as Ricardo Lagos' campaign manager for the Metropolitan Santiago region during the presidential primaries in 1999, and was his campaign manager during the actual presidential campaign.

She was named Minister of Health in Ricardo Lagos' administration in 2000, where she found herself at the head of an organisation with more than 70,000 workers and a nationwide network of public health services. President Lagos gave her two main tasks as Minister, the first being to improve primary care, increase the quality and coverage of care at the country's public health clinics, and eliminate long wait times for treatment at those clinics within three months.

The second task was to begin preparation for a major healthcare reform programme.

As Minister, Dr. Bachelet established a system whereby patients could make appointments over the phone by calling toll-free numbers. She also extended medical and dental coverage for all patients in the public health system and instituted a policy guaranteeing medical treatment within 24 hours to all children under one and all seniors over 65 years of age.

In January 2002, President Lagos reshuffled his Cabinet and moved Dr. Bachelet to head the Defence Ministry. She was the first woman in both Chile and in Latin America to hold such a position.

On October 1, 2004, she resigned from the Ministry of Defence in order to dedicate herself full-time to her presidential campaign.

When election day came on December 11, 2005, Dr. Bachelet received the largest amount of votes - 45.95 per cent - 20 points higher than her nearest opponent. However, according to the Chilean Constitution, a President has to be elected with more than 50 per cent of the vote, so she and the other top presidential candidate in the December elections, Sebastian Pinera, faced each other in a run-off election on January 12, 2006. In the second round, Dr. Bachelet won 53.49 per cent of the vote, becoming the first woman to ever be elected President in the history of the Republic of Chile.

During her one-day visit to Jamaica, the focus of the bilateral exchange between President Bachelet and Prime Minister Simpson Miller will embrace a wide range of topics covering technical co-operation in areas such as trade, sugar, and the use of Kingston as a transhipment port and distribution hub for Chilean exports.

Additional areas that will be discussed include tourism, sports and culture, education and training, and energy.

It is also expected that air services and visa abolition agreements will be signed at the meeting.
Following the meeting, President Bachelet and Prime Minister Simpson Miller will hold a joint press briefing.

President Bachelet, who will be accompanied by her Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alejandro Foxley, and senior government officials, will depart Jamaica in the afternoon for Haiti.

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