BUSINESS LEADERS SUPPORT BACHELET

(Sept. 23, 2005) Presidential candidate and frontrunner for December’s election Michelle Bachelet is working hard to make sure business leaders from across the political spectrum know who she is.

With a quiet group of progressive entrepreneurs supporting her, the socialist Concertación party candidate is drawing strength from the business sector in hopes of securing campaign support and continuing the country’s progress in economic development.

Ingrid Antonijevic is the head of the group of prominent business leaders who are working to introduce Bachelet to business groups across the country. As director of negotiations and development at Chile’s only state bank, BancoEstado, Antonijevic has used her position to woo wealthy and influential Chileans to Bachelet’s campaign.

The Concertación candidate has held five dinners for Chile’s political and financial leaders with the purpose of giving those invited a chance to share their concerns with Bachelet and sound her out on policy issues before the upcoming election, Antonijevic said.

Antonijevic has also been instrumental in the creation of an internet-based grassroots campaign to raise funds for the candidate. “Transparency, Austerity, and Citizenship,” a name chosen to highlight the kind of government Bachelet claims she will lead if elected, seeks individual donations of 1,000 pesos (US$1.86) for the former health and defense minister’s campaign.

If elected, Bachelet would be the second socialist president since Salvador Allende was ousted by General Augusto Pinochet in the infamous Sept. 11, 1973 military coup. Chile’s current president, Ricardo Lagos, is the first.

Elected in 2000, Lagos had to deal with a very wary business sector. At the time many businessmen feared that Lagos would be a divisive president, too much aligned with traditional Socialist Party politics. To their relief, however, Lagos’ policies were much “renovated” and Chile experienced strong economic growth under Lagos. Bachelet maintains she will continue in this line if elected.